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BIOLOGY 


1913. Jaw of ancient man found in England. . , 
1912. Growth of living tissues of warm-blooded animals in 


vilro 

1910-1915. Successful transplantation of organs and tissues 
from one animal to another : 4 i 

1909. E. B. Wilson associated sex determinant with special 
chromosomes 5 A 

1909. Jacques Loeb induced artificial parthenogenesis in eggs 
ines urchin by chemical means 

1907. Heidelberg Jaw discovered .- 

1905-1915. Establishment of vitamines as conditioners of 
growth and health 

1900-1915. Behavior of chromosomes shown to parallel the 
behavior of Mendelian units , 

1901-1903. De Vries published theory of mutation 2 

1900-1910. Recapitulation hypothesis makes many contri- 
butions to interpretation of development in plants 
and animals : Tne 

1900-1910. Paleological studies extend limits of prehistoric 
times through investigation of fossils and geologic 
formations 


1892. Weismann published theory of germ plasm 
1892. Hertwig discovered nature of fertilization 
1891-1892. Pithecanthropus Erectus bones found in Java 
1891. Reducing division of chromosomes demonstrated by 
Henking 
1890-1900. Biogeography established as one aspect of evolu- 
tionary studies t 
1889. Galton introduced statistical methods of investigation 
1888. Waldeyer rediscovered chromosomes 
1883. Van Beneden and others discovered chromosomes 
1882. Fleming showed that the nucleus of a new cell arises by 
division of original nucleus : 
1881. Balfour organized knowledge of embryology into science 
1868. Use of stains in study of cells and protoplasm 
1865. Mendel published theory of alternative inheritance 
1864. Miiller propounded recapitulation theory 
1862-1869. Pasteur and Tyndall finally disproved sponta- 
neous generation 
1861-1865. Gegenbaur recognized egg and sperm as cells 
1859. Darwin published “ Origin of Species” 
. Von Siebold established fact of parthenogenesis 
. First skeleton of a Neanderthal Man found 
4. Fusion of egg and sperm cells to form new individual 
proved Oe 
. Recognition of fact that new cells arise only by divi- 
sion of pre-existing cells 
. Schwann founded cell theory 
. Von Baer discovered germ layers of cells 
. Cuvier founded vertebrate palaeontology 
. Treviranus and Lamarck proposed term “ biology”” 


MEDICINE 
ee EST eee 
1922. Banting and Best found that internal secretion from 
pancreas (insulin) regulates sugar metabolism and is 
specific for diabetes 
1919. Noguchi isolated organism that causes yellow fever, 
Leptospira icteroides : a 
1918. Tomato juice found to be an excellent antiscorbutic _ 
1916-1918. Lung surgery revolutionized under war condi- 


tions. ie 

1917. Vena tests as well as physical employed in recruiting 
soldiers 

1915. Carrel-Dakin antiseptic treatment of infected wounds 

1913. Abderhalden introduced ferment reaction for diagnosis 
of dementia praecox 

1911. Typhoid inoculation test on U. S, Army successful 

1910. Ricketts and Wilder showed that typhus fever is trans- 
mitted by body lice = 

1910. Paris Academy of Medicine announced discovery of 
anti-typhoid vaccine i cee 

1910. Ehrlich synthesized an arsenic compound “‘606"" (sal- 
varsan or arsphenamine) a specific for syphilis 

1909. Hookworm fight costing $1,000,000 undertaken | 

1907. Wasserman introduced sero-diagnosis for syphilis 

1905. Alfred Einhorn discovered novocaine _ a 

1905. Schaudinn discovered spirochaeta pallida of syphilis 

1903. Bruce oes that sleeping sickness is transmitted by 
tsetse fly 

1901. Takamine isolated adrenalin 


a 

1896. Widal and Sicard introduced agglutination test for 
typhoid fever F = 

1896. Dibdin and Schweder introduced biological purification 
of sewage 

1894. Kitasato and Yersin discovered plague bacillus 

1891-1892. Welch and Flexner introduced antitoxin treatment 

1889. Behring discovered antitoxins 

1887. Weichselbaum discovered meningococcus : 

1886. Marie described acromegaly as connected with the 
pituitary body f 

1885, Pasteur introduced inoculation to prevent hydrophobia 

1884. Nicolaier discovered tetanus bacillus 

1884. Koch discovered cholera bacillus 

1883. Klebs discovered diphtheria bacillus 

1882. Koch discovered tubercle bacillus 

1881. Laveran discovered parasite of malarial fever 

1880. Mosetig Moorhof introduced iodine in surgery 

1880. Eberth isolated typhoid bacillus 

1880. Pasteur isolated streptococcus and staphylococcus 

1877. Pasteur and Koch proved relation of bacteria to disease 

1875. Lésch observed parasitic amoebae in dysentery ‘ 

1875. reel discovered hemolysis from transfusion of alien 
blood. 

1867. Lister introduced antiseptic surgery 

1858. Virchow first recognized the doctrine of cellular pa- 
thology 

1846. Morton introduced ether as anesthetic 

1845. Rynd introduced hypodermic injections : 

1840. Henle advanced theory of relation of bacteria to disease 

1834-1840, Johannes Miller founded modern physico-chem- 
ical physiology 

1820. Discovery of sensory and motor roots of nerves 

1800. Waterhouse introduced Jennerian vaccination 
America 


into 





. Cuvier founded comparative anatomy 

1789. Jussieu made great advance in forming natural system 
of plants 

1764. Bonnet stated that animals and plants are highly organ- 
ized matter 

1753. Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature 

1735. Linnaeus published ‘‘Systema Naturae” 

1703. Leeuwenhoek discovered parthenogenesis of plant lice 


1798. Haslam described general paralysis 

1796, Doctor Jenner vaccinated James Phipps, a country boy 
1792. Electrophysiology founded 

1773. Fotherfill described facial neuralgia 

1745. Barbers in England separated from higher surgeons 
1733. Hales published demonstration of blood pressure 
1715. Hensing discovered phosphorus in the blood 


ASTRONOMY 


1919-1922. Confirmation of Einstein’s prediction that rays 
of light from a star would be bent 1.75 seconds of 
arc on passing the sun 

1920. Measurement of Betelgeuse with interferometer at 
Mt. Wilson by Pease and Anderson under direction 
of Michelson proved existence of giant stars as 
distinguished from dwarf stars having same type 
spectra 

1920. “‘ Tables of the Moon's Motion,” based on E. W. Brown's 
lunar theory developed according to methods of G. W. 
Hill, published. 

1919. Hooker 100-inch reflecting telescope at Mt. Wilson 
Observatory was put into regular use 

1919. Louis Bell showed that Saturn's rings are streams of 
matter varying from meteoric size to finest dust 

1919. Absolute dimensions of four eclipsing binaries worked 
out by Plaskett 

1919. Lick Observatory staff completed measurement of all 
known bright-line nebulae 

1918. June 8, Nova Aquilae III rose to greatest brilliance of 
any nova since the one discovered by Kepler in 1604 

1918. Wolf discovered new asteroid with exceptionally eccen- 
tric orbit 

1918. First volume of new Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra, 
covering 222,000 stars, was published at Harvard 

1917. Innes discovereg faint companion of alpha-Centauri 

1917. Shapley discovered laws of variation of brightness of 
Cepheid stars which enabled him to compute distance 
and dimensions of globular star clusters 

1913. Russell advanced ideas of stellar evolution and classified 
stars as giant and dwarf 

1912-1913. Mt. Wilson Observatory discovered shifts in solar 
spectrum indicating that sun is a magnetized sphere 

1910. True to prediction, Halley’s Comet returned 

1910. Kapteyn advanced theory that most of the stars belong 
to one of two great star streams moving in diverging 
directions at about 110 degrees to one another 

1893. Chamberlain. Evolution of binary system 

1889, First spectroscopic binary system discovered by Pick- 
ering 

1887. A. A. Michelson invented the interferometer 

1880. Langley invented bolometer 

1877. Schiaparelli discovered the so-called “‘canali’’ on Mars 

1860. Kirchhoff analyzed sun’s atmosphere by means of 
spectroscope 

1839. Henderson measured stellar distance in light years 

1838. Bessel determined distance of fixed stars by actual 
measurement 

1821. Fraunhofer constructed a diffraction grating and meas- 
ured waves of light 


PHYSICS AND INVENTIONS 
ee ee eee S| 
1919. Irving Langmuir published his “concentric shell” theory 

of atom structure es ee 
1919, Malons proved that velocity of light is independent 
of the velocity of its source 3 o< 
1919. E, E. Rutherford announced the dissociation of the 
nitrogen atom when bombarded by alpha particles, 
with the emission of hydrogen - 
1918. Map sneeng from airplanes Was inaugurated during the 
or! ar piss 
1915. Einstein announced the general theory of relativity, 
including gravitation. 
1912. Amundsen discovered the South Pole 
1912. Late determined the constitution of crystals by X-rays 
1909. Millikan measured the charge of an electron 
1909. The Carnegie, vessel for making magnetic surveys of 
the sea, was completed : 
1909. Shackleton located the South Magnetic Pole 
1909. North Pole was discovered by Peary. : 
1908. Rutherford calculated the charge on an alpha particle. 
First direct experimental evidence of atomic theory 
1908. Sustained aeroplane flights made for first time by the 
Wright brothers in America and by Forman in France 
1907. First commercial wireless dispatch across the Atlantic 
1907. Lee de Forest added grid to electron tube, forming mod- 
ern radio triode “5. 
1905. Einstein announced special theory of relativity 
1904, Electron tube first used in radio : 
1903. Ramsay and Soddy discovered that the element helium 
is produced by spontaneous atomic disintegration 
from the element radium. 7 : 5 
1903. Orville Wright flew the first heavier-than-air machine 
for the first time 
1903. Thomson developed electron theory 
1901. Planck developed quantum theory of energy 


$i $$ $$ $_______ 

1897. Marconi sent first wireless message across Bristol 
Channel, England Lae 

1896. Marconi invented wireless communication 

1896. Becquerel discovered radioactivity 

1895. Rontgen discovered X-rays 

1894. Development of automobile 

1893. Diesel engine invented. 

1888. Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves 

1884. Mergenthaler invented linotype machine 

1880. Commercial use of dynamo an 

1879. Edison exhibited incandescent electric light 

1877. Edison invented phonograph. 

1876. Bell patented and exhibited telephone ; E 

1876. Otto Pnies internal combustion engine of type now 
use 

1864. Maxwell propounded electromagnetic theory of light 

1862. Arc light 

1859-1875. Maxwell developed kinetic theory of gases 

1850. Electrotyping process 

1844. Morse telegraph 

1839. Daguerre invented photography . é 

331, Faraday discoyered electromagnetic induction 

1823. Ampére’s work on effects of electric current 

1807. Fulton introduced the steamboat ; 

1801. Young demonstrated wave theory of light 

1800. Voltaic cell | 





Laplace advanced nebular hypothesis 
. Herschel founded sidereal astronomy, extending New- 
ton’s laws to stellar space 
Shizuki advanced nebular hypothesis 
Kant advanced nebular hypothesis 
Bradley discovered aberration of light 
. Halley discovered motion of stars 


i Whitney invented the cotton gin 

lvani discovered dynamic electricity 

anklin invented bifocal lens 

att patented his steam engine 

14. Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny 

Centigrade thermometer perfecte 
F klin identified lightning with electric spark 
Celsius invented 100+Jegree thermometer 
Fahrenheit devised thermometer scale 
John Store invented tuning fork 


CHEMISTRY ICENTUR 


1921. Soddy showed atoms of elements are multiples of re- 20th 
duced hydrogen atom 

1914. Determination of Atomic Numbers by means of X-ray 
spectra made by Moseley 

1913. Bragg determined atomic structure of diamond by 
x-ray 

1913, Role of vitamines in diet discovered 

1913. Bobr explained constitution of the atom 

1911, Discovery of ‘‘ Isotopes,” elements having same chem- 

ical properties but different-atomic weights 

1910. Mme. Curie isolated metallic radium 

1910. Harries synthesized rubber from isoprene 

1910. Direct synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydro- 
gen accomplished by Haber (fixed nitrogen) 

1908. Onnes liquefies helium 

1906. Willstatter worked out composition of chlorophyll 

1903. Artificial rubies made by Verneuil 

1903. Fixation of nitrogen by electrie arc and cyanamide 
processes. 

1902. Rutherford proved that radium gives off an active ema- 
nation (niton) 

1902. yee ischer proved amido group of nucleus in all pro- 
teids 


1898. 
1898. 
1894 


Ramsey discovered neon, krypton and xenon. 

Monsieur and Madam Curie discovered radium 

Lord Rayleigh discovered argon, first of inert elements 

1878. Willard Gibbs published phase rule 

1876. Crookes discovered radiant matter 

1874. Le Bel and van't Hoff explained arrangement of 

atoms in space. 

1869. Mendeleef announced periodic law. 

1868. Helium discovered in spectrum of sun by Lockyer 

1867. A. Nobel patented dynamite 

1865. Kekulé devised benzene ring. 

1861. Graham separated colloids and crystalloids 

1856. semer devised process of making steel 

1856. Perkin made first coal-tar dye 

1852, Frankland founded doctrine of valency 

1847. Sobrero discovered nitroglycerin 

1840. Liebig founded agricultural chemistry 

1832. First step toward knowledge of nature of compounds 

1828. Synthesis of urea and beginning of organic chemistry 
ourtois disco iodine 

. Discovery of Avogadro's law makes it possible to deter- 
mine atomic and molecular weights 

. Gay-Lussac discovered law of combining volumes 

807. Davy discovered sodium and potassium by breaking up 

their compounds 


Charles discovered law of expansion of gases 18th 
Lav. r introduced system of chemical nomenclature 
Lave discovered relation of metals to oxides 

. Bergman and Scheele discovered manganese 
Priestley disc red oxygen 
Ruth red nitrogen 
Réaumur improved method of obtaining w rought iron 
Stahl propounded phlogiston theory 








1686-1704. Ray published “‘History of Plant 
Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria 

1672. Malpighi founded embryology through study of chick 
1672. a published work on structure of plants 

1665. Hooke saw and discovered cell structure in cork 
1661-1687. Great growth of microscopy and histology 

1660. Redi disproved spontaneous generation 

1605. Lord Bacon divided descriptive science into history of 

nature and history of man 


1551-1558. Gesner published great work on natural history 


For two thousand years the writ- 

ings of Aristotle represented 

the highest level which natural 
science attained 


Pliny compiled knowledge of his mixed fact 


and fancy 


time; 


1690. Floyer counted pulse by watch 
1668. Leeuwenhoek discovered structure of lungs, the relation 
of air sacs to capillaries 

1664. De Graaf made pancreatic fistula 

1661. Malpighi published first account of capillary system 

1658. Wepfer demonstrated lesion of brain in apoplexy 

1647. Pecquet discovered thoracic duct 

1616. Harvey began to lecture on circulation of blood, the 
first step toward physiology 

1602. Platter published first classification of disease 


Newton published “Principia,” in which he demon 
strated the law of gravity 
mer discovered that light does not travel instan- 
taneously, and determined its velocity 
. Observatory at Greenwich founded 
Newton constructed reflecting telescope 
Huggins founded astrophysics 
Galileo defended Copernican theory 
. Napier invented logarithms 
Meyer described nebulae and variable stars 
1619. Kepler published his three laws of motion 





Vesalius (1514-1564) introduced dissection as a method 
of studying anatomy 


1582. Gregory revised the Julian calendar 
1546-1601. Tycho Brahe made painstaking observation on 
movement of stars 
1530. Copernicus completed theory of solar system, that the 
earth rotates and revolves about the sun 


1686. Newton discovered law of inertia 
1686. Newton discovered ldw of motion 
1676. Hooke stated the law of elastic bodies 
1662. Boyle's law of pressure and volume 
350. Guericke invented air pump 
343. Torricelli constructed barometer 
34. Drebbel improved thermometer 
1620. Bacon published “Novum Organon” 
1609. Galileo constructed telescope (32 diameters) 
1608. Lipperhey invented the telescope 
1600. Gilbert published “De Magnete” on compass needle 


1590. Galileo discovered law of falling bodies 
1583. Galileo discovered law of pendulum 





1420? Printing from movable type 








1675. Lémery published textbook ~ 


1669. Brand discovered phosphorus 
1662. Boyle defined element, compound, and mixture 
1648. Glauber prepared blue vitriol 

1640, Neri published “Ars Vitraria” 


Cours de chymie’ 


1595, Libavius published textbook “ Alchymia” 

















Nothing between Galen and 
Vesalius 





Compass perfected, exact date unknown 





From Ptolemy to the eleventh 
century eight observations only 
are known to have been made. 

Arabs did much collecting and 





translating of Greek works 








No advance in either principles or 





application during the Middle Ages 








Galen compiled and added to knowledge of his time. 
His writings were taken as authority for two thousand 
years 


Ptolemy wrote the “ Almagest,’’ the astronomical Bible 
of the Middle Ages. He held that the earth was a 
sphere resting at the centre of the universe. 





46 B.C 


Alchemy of Middle Ages was 
a mixture of Egyptian art, indus- 
trial processes, and Greek philos- 
ophy 





NO 


Julius Caesar revised the Roman calendar 


x 





160?-125? B.c. 
real years 
Hipparchus 

Great circles fixed, and celestial measurements made 
Sundial improved. Distances of sun and moon 
measured 


Hipparchus recognized solar and side- 
Catalogue of 1080 stars was made by 


Sw 





+‘ 


Archimedes discovered law of levers 
Archimedes discovered law of floating bodies 
Archimedes calculated m and area of a circle 








eS 


First observatory; first systematic observation of con- 
stellations 


of 


Aristotle made plates of anatomical figures 
Dissection of human body made legal in Alexandria 


Aristotle (384-322 B.c.) made first classification 


Greeks believed that all things were formed of four ele- 
plants and animals 


ments; air, earth, fire, water; they foreshadowed 
Atomic Theory 

Nature of chemical changes 

Conservation of matter 








Aristotle collected and systematized information 
Philolaus held that the earth and other planets revolved 
around a central fire 


we 





ras thought the earth was a sphere unsupported 
at centre of universe 


SSS 
SS 


SS 


= 


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SSS 
oS NS 
Ss 


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nS 
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wv 








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= 





No doubt a considerable mass of 

material had accumulated before 

the time of Aristotle, but the 
records are indefinite 





Chinese records described observa- 
tions supposed to have been made in 
the twenty-seventh century B.¢ 
Indian sacred books refer to knowl 
edge acquired even earlier. Records 
of observations of Chaldean priests 
4241 B.C Egyptian calendar, the 
earliest recorded event in astron- 
omy 





SAN 

















Much practical knowledge of me- 


Arts involving chemical action, 
chanical principles 


as dyeing and metal working, were 
practiced from very early times 


Egyptian papyrus records of well-developed 


system of medicine 


gives 



























































SOME OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS IN FORTY CENTURIES OF SCIENCE—AN HISTORICAL CHART BY OTIS W. CALDWELL 


(Note; It is not possible to include in this chart all the events, discoveries, and names of persons associated in important ways with the development of modern science 


Specialists in different fields of science differ widely con- 
cerning what contributions are of greatest significance. This chart, however, is the result of suggestions and Criticisms of a number of students of science, 


and thus does not represent merely the judgment of one person, O. W. C.) 


- 


SCIENCE REMAKING 
THE WORLD 


EDITED BY 
OPiS We CALDWELL, Pu.D. 


Director of the Lincoln School of Teachers College, and 
Professor of Education, Columbia University 


AND 


EDWIN E. SLOSSON, Pu.D. 


Editor, “Science Service” 





GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
Bee PLEDAY, Pees ts oe OVE PA INFY. 
1923 


COPYRIGHT, 1922, 1923, BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 


First Edition 


, ie | 
7 ~ 
FC Sw wa 


*, 
a.u08D " en " 


PREFACE 


Durinc the summer of 1922, nineteen men cooper- 
ated in presenting a course of lectures in Teachers Col- 
lege, Columbia University. The purpose of the course 
was primarily to provide interesting and engaging in- 
formation about the achievements of modern science. 
It attempted to give students of all subjects an under- 
standing of certain types of achievements of modern 
science, to suggest the meaning of science in various 
aspects of modern life and thought; to indicate the 
place of science in modern, social, and industrial rela- 
tions. Before half of the lectures had been presented, 
hundreds of listeners had requested me, as organizer of 
the course, to assemble and publish part of the lectures 
and if possible, to find means for wide distribution of 
the resulting volume. In my desire that the volume, 
when published, might benefit from the unusual style 
and scientific clarity of Dr. E. E. Slosson, his assis- 
tance was successfully importuned in the venture. Then, 
a gracious and generous though anonymous benefactor 
agreed to finance the placement of a limited number of 
copies of the proposed volume in libraries of educational 
institutions. Finally, the publishers codperated by pro- 
viding at bare cost of production the first lot of copies for 
general distribution, depending upon later sales for their 
profits from the publication. The authors and the 


Vv 


53689e 


vi PREFACE 


editots have contributed their services without personal 
remuneration, and have done this as a welcome privilege 
in helping to extend the achievements and underlying 
truths of this most conspicuous field of modern thought. 
Not all the lectures which were given in the course are 
available; also changes which are advisable for publica- 
tion have been made; and Dr. Kellogg and Dr. Williams 
have kindly added chapters upon topics of wide interest © 
and importance. 

Why give such a course of lectures, and why publish 
such a volume? Because the citizen of our day uses 
modern science at each turn of his day’s work. If he 
is a thinking citizen, he is ambitious to benefit by what 
he understands as scientific procedure in using facts, 
principles, and occurrences. A manufacturer wants 
his operators to possess whatever knowledge of ma- 
terials and processes science has produced for the 
improvement of quality and quantity of output. A 
lawyer or preacher desires factual illustrative material 
from the working world of science with which to make 
his case clear and convincing. If this citizen is a teacher 
of any subject or grade he deals with the biggest science 
need of all, for those whom he teaches belong to an age 
which science has made unlike any of its predecessgors. 
To men in industry, commerce, and the professions, it is 
of increasing importance that progressive workers shall 
have knowledge not only of accomplishments of science, 
but of the methods by which discoveries are made. 

Some thirty years ago Louis Pasteur said: 


In our century science is the soul of the prosperity of nations and 
the living source of all progress. Undoubtedly, the tiring daily 


PREFACE vil 


discussions of politics that seem to be our guide are empty appear- 
ances. What really leads us forward are a few scientific discoveries 
and their applications. 


And the following is quoted from a recent statement 
by President James R. Angell: 


Nothing can be more certain than that the character and rapidity 
of our national development in all matters which relate to industry, 
agriculture, public health and the preservation of the physical 
framework of our civilization will be dependent upon the quantity 
and quality of sound research which is carried on. The truth of 
this assertion becomes even more apparent when one recognizes the 
fact that every modern nation stands in relation of industrial and 
commercial competition with other nations, and, in the measure in 
which this is true, to fall behind the others in scientific development 
is to precipitate a trend of events which spells national depression 
and disaster. In other words, the price of a sound, comprehensive 
national life is, in these times, widespread and intelligent scientific 
research. 


Men need and desire a genuine interpretation of 
modern science as it appears in the home, street, and 
factory. They want to know its meaning in public 
health, in industry, in social relations, and above all 
in the adjustment of their philosophy to the scientific 
truths of the modern world. 

This volume is especially designed to assist the 
teacher of courses in general science or the special 
sciences by bringing textbooks up to date and suggest- 
ing possible occupations to young people who really 
need guidance in finding callings which appeal to them 
as fields of opportunity and usefulness. 

It is expected also that the public will find this volume 
a convenient and engaging means of catching up with 


vill PREFACE 


the progress of modern science. Every intelligent 
person, whatever his professional interests, has a nat- 
ural curiosity to know something about the new things 
in science, as well as in art, literature, drama, and world 
events. But it is not so easy to keep in touch with the 
advancement of science since comprehensible compen- 
diums of recent researches are hard to find. At the end 
of each chapter there has been appended a list of several 
recent and reliable books and articles, both technical 
and popular, for the convenience of readers who seek 
further information. 

The reader will notice that in almost every chapter 
there is given, besides an explanation of recent discov- 
eries and applications, some account of the efforts that 
have led to them and of the personalities concerned 
in them. ‘This unusual feature is due to a theory of 
the editors of the volume that more attention should 
be paid to scientific history and biography. They be- 
lieve that one of the reasons why science is commonly 
regarded by the public as dry is that it has been too 
completely divested of its human interest. It is im- 
portant for the public to understand that scientific 
progress is not a mere series of the lucky accidents and 
happy inspirations of a few favoured individuals, but 
a long and toilsome process of investigation, hypothe- 
cation, and verification on the part of many workers 
who often follow fallacious theories and turn into blind 
alleys from which they have to find their way back to 
the highway leading toward truth. 

Otrs W. CaLDWELL. 


CONTENTS 


ACHIEVEMENTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF MOoDERN 
SCIENCE. 


rie Wi Caldwell, Ph.D. 


GASOLENE AS.A WoRLD Power . 


Edwin E. Slosson, Ph.D. 
J 


Tue INFLUENCE OF COAL-I AR ON CIVILIZATION 
Edwin E. Slosson, Ph. D. 


ELEcTRONS AND How WeE Use THEM 
John Mills 


AN INVESTIGATION ON EpipEmic INFLUENZA . 
Peter K. Olitsky, M.D., and Frederick L. 
Gates, M.D. 


Our PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF TUBERCULOSIS . 
/ Linsly R. Williams, M.D. 


ai, PAsTEUR, AND LENGTHENED Human LIFE 
Otis W. Caldwell, Ph.D. 
“i 


NTERNATIONAL Puspiic HEALTH . 
George E. Vincent, Ph.D. | 


1x 


PAGE 


12." 


48 


78 


oF 


115 


133 


150 


Xx CONTENTS 


EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF MopERN BOTANICAL 


(GARDENS) x tue Ae 
George T. Moore, Ph.D. 


Tue MEANING oF EVOLUTION. 
John M. Coulter, Ph.D. 


Our Ficut AcaInst INSECTs . 
L. O. Howard, Ph.D. 


“Insect SocloLocy 
Vernon Kellogg 


How THE Forests FEED THE CLouUDs . 
Raphael Zon, F.E. 


Tue Mopern Potato PRosLeM . 
Charles O. Appleman, Ph.D. 


CHEMISTRY AND Economy oF Foop . 


Henry C. Sherman, Ph.D. 


Our Daity BREAD AND VITAMINS 


Walter H. Eddy, Ph.D. 


PAGE 


162 
167 
190 
199 
212 
223 
247 


265 


LIST OF HALFTONE ILLUSTRATIONS 


Some Outstanding Achievements in Forty Cen- 


EERO TE SCIENCE.) Lr aCe Bromiispiece 
The First Oil Wellin the United States . . . 12 
A Field of Automobiles in California . . . . 13 
Povisvnasteur  ... . CRM OP A oe Oa en of bs 
Brooklyn Botanic Gakaen eG EMU s eee end cb ny LOA 
Demonstration Garden, Missouri Botanical 

Prarder, .. |). . eT OS 
Spraying for Gypsy Moth on Brest eee SOOT OO 
Spraying for Boll Weevil on Cotton . . . . 197 
Clouds Forming over Forests . . CRIM ds ae He 
Clouds Driven by the Prevailing winds ee een ee! 
Sprouts from Different Size Seed Pieces . . . 228 
Plants from Same Size Seed Pieces . . . . 229 
Respiration Calorimeter Laboratory . . . . 252 
Respiration Chamber, USL Calorimeter 

Laboratory Pah 2ns 
Contrasting eee ent in (eet een) Pane 2Oo) 


Contrasting Effects in Rats with Equally 
Memed*) ood, supplies’... 6 9) (2 268 


LIST OF TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS 


Atomic Systems at the Periodic Table 


What Happens When Molecule of Sodium 
Chloride Splits up Merl!" 


The Thermionic Vacuum Tabet 

Death Rates from Leading Causes, U. S. Renee 
tion Area, 1900, 1910, and 1920 . : 

Tuberculosis Death Rate, U.S. See Aree 
1900-1921 

Death Rate from Tiberntner: W. SP ), I9IO a 
1920 

Death Rate a Raberculones in New, York GE 
Since 1898 . 

New York City Deaths ae Tabercutes ScHee 
1898 

Underground Nes of Bumblenes 

Honey-Ants 

Wind Direction and Meus Peeeanen for ne 
Month of January . 

Wind Direction and Mean Becton for ae 
Month of July . : 

Circulation of Water on Bans SHE 

Cross Sections of Chair and Bed Calorimeters 


PAGE 


85 
94 


116 
118 
122 


126 


129 | 
206 
209 


216 
217 


219 
256 


SCIENCE REMAKING 
WO Reb 





SCIENCE REMAKING 
THE WORLD 


ACHIEVEMENTS AND OBLIGATIONS 
OF MODERN SCIENCE 


By Otis W. CaLpwe tl, Pu.D. 


Teachers College, Columbia University 


A FEW years ago at a New York City luncheon, a 


business acquaintance expressed a keen desire 

to have a conference with a Chicago scientific 
friend of one of the luncheon guests. He said: “ Will 
you not telephone him and see if he will meet me in 
New York to-morrow?” Thus, at 12:00 noon, the tele- 
phone connection with Chicago was made, a conversa- 
tion held with the friend, and at 12:45 p.M. the Chicago 
scientist took his train. At 10 o’clock next day the 
conference was held in New York, and at 2:45 P.M. 
the man of science was on his return journey which 
placed him in Chicago next morning, ready for his 
regular day’s work. What an age in which to live! 
A science man, almost a thousand miles away, is needed 
for a conference. The telephone permits a brief con- 
versation with words so clear that the peculiarities of 
friends’ voices are heard almost as in the speaker’s 


I 


“i SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


presence. A modern train transports the passenger 
while he eats, sleeps, and writes his plans for his meeting. 
The necessary conference is held next morning, and the 
following morning he is back at his regular post. 

This ready and effective communication and dizzy 
speed of travel have become ordinary and slow, as 
modern science continues to work. By wireless we 
speak not merely from New York to Chicago or to 
San Francisco, but over the oceans—around the earth 
in a few relays. So rapidly is science imprewng com- 
munication that we hesitate to write of “wireless,” 
knowing full well that what we say will be out of date, 
possibly, before the statements appear on the printed 
page. Ang what@®of human transportation? The 
Twentieth Century, the Broadway Limited, or the 
Transcontinental Express, apparently creeps along as 
the modern airplane above speeds on its way. A regu- 
lar service route 1s proposed which will permit the pas- 
senger to dine in New York or Chicago, go to a theatre, 
then take his airplane sleeper, and breakfast in the 
other city. Even the erstwhile astounding feat of a 
non-stop flight in twenty-seven hours from New York 
to San Diego has ceased to give us its early thrill, so 
confident are we that modern science contains possi- 
bilities surpassing our wildest expectations. “Twenty 
thousand leagues under the sea’ no longer seems 
fanciful. “You can no more do that than you can fly,” 
is now meaningless. “Voices passing through the air,” 
is now so true that even we as speak to one another 
there may be passing through the atmosphere about 
you unseen messages pertaining to peace and war, love 


MODERN SCIENCE 3 


and hate, commerce, industry, government—every 
topic which holds men’s minds—all being transmitted 
through a common medium, none necessarily interfering 
with any other. Surely the imagery of the past seems 
trivial when compared with the reality of to-day. 

Science has successfully attacked many of the ills to 
which men succumb. We need not now have smallpox 
unless we prefer not to do the things which science has 
shown will prevent this disease. Typhoid, far less 
common than two decades ago, is so well understood 
and its transmission so definitely associated with un- 
cleanliness that we shall soon see the day when it will 
be not only unfortunate but not respectable to have the 
disease. It would now be more indecent to have 
typhoid than it is to have the “itch,” were each person 
as fully in control of his own personal environment for 
the one disease as for the other. Yellow fever, the 
awful plague of many countries, not only can be de- 
stroyed, but has actually been destroyed in certain of 
its worst centres. It is a picturesque campaign now 
being waged, one with a vision of service to the human 
race, to remove yellow fever from the earth. The most 
dreaded disease of all, perhaps, tuberculosis, is slowly 
but surely yielding. Though big tasks are ahead, 
enough is now known and proved in practice with tu- 
berculosis patients to give abundant hope to hundreds 
of thousands of discouraged people who have this dis- 
ease. It is but a brief time since a clear diagnosis of 
tuberculosis was all but a death warrant. Surely sci- 
ence is making the earth a better home for men. 

In instruments of warfare science has produced an 


4 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


antithesis not yet understood by men. In the World 
War the airplane dropped bombs within the range over 
which the airplane could fly. The dirigible balloon 
could carry heavier bombs over a longer range, but the 
gas which carried the dirigible aloft was highly inflam- 
mable, and a gun shot through the gas bag meant con- 
flagration and a terrible death to those who were in the 
balloon. But a scientist studying the sun found 
helium in the sun’s chromosphere. Of what use to us 
would the sun’s helium be? Then helium was found 
in a mineral in the earth. Helium, lighter than air, 
was not inflammable, was not easily affected by electric 
currents—thus an ideal gas for dirigible balloons. 
Helium, supposedly very rare, could be secured only 
at a cost of something like $1,500 per cubic foot, and a 
large dirigible balloon requires a million or more cubic 
feet of the gas. Then another scientist discovered that 
helium may be secured from natural gas and the gas be 
improved for domestic use when the helium is removed. 
Later developments will permit men now to secure large 
quantities of helium at a cost of a few cents per cubic 
foot. Thus dirigible balloons may be floated on the 
air by a non-inflammable, non-electrifable gas at 
heights and over distances hitherto thought impos- 
sible. 

During this development, new discoveries regarding 
explosives have increased their efficiency, so that now 
it is said that a single ton of the highest explosive will, 
if advantageously placed, serve to destroy the largest 
existing battleship. Or if the bomb is loaded with the 
latest destructive gases, it will snuff out the life of all 


MODERN SCIENCE 5 


the occupants of a modern city. Helium gas for use in 
balloons, other new substances for modern explosives 
and killing gases—these are instruments of destruc- 
tion which will completely change warfare in its meth- 
ods. Even modern battleships are now said to be 
obsolete, since none is protected against modern scien- 
tific bombs. Helium carried dirigibles may go anywhere 
and drop destructive gases hundreds, even thousands, 
of miles from the base of operations. 

The achievements of science are very great both in 
their number and in the magnitude of their influences. 
Tremendously powerful for good and for ill as are the 
material advantages gained through modern science, it 
is possible that still greater advantages may be gained 
through certain attitudes of thinking, judging, and 
acting which modern science is patiently teaching to a 
slowly learning human race. It is but a little while, 
in the comparative history of men, since those who dis- 
agreed too loudly with generally accepted ideas were 
put to death. This was done presumably to show 
others the terrible results of permitting one’s thinking 
processes to lead him to unconventional conclusions. 
If a daring honest mind led one to say that the earth 
is round, not flat, this thinker’s life had to be taken, lest 
his heresy should be accepted by others. If a patriot 
questioned the divine rights of the king, this patriot was 
thought to be dangerous to the common good. If one 
claimed the right and accepted the responsibility of 
thinking through and acting according to his own 
conclusions regarding spiritual problems, his life was 
endangered because his thinking might undo the sys- 


6 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


tems then in vogue. Even in a country to which our 
ancestors came in order to think freely, they themselves 
soon began to shackle, and occasionally destroy, those 
whose alleged freedom in thinking led to conclusions 
unacceptable to those in authority. In the present age 
of science and renewed belief in the power of truth, we 
see the old and inevitable strife between those who do 
and those who do not believe in the progressive nature 
of truth. Attempted legislation against truth merely 
increases the caution and obligation of inquiring minds, 
thus helps to refine the inquiry and make the results 
more secure. Certainly an attack upon a progressive 
thinker cannot kill progressive thought, but rather by 
antithesis creates one more spiritual monument in the 
name of truth seeking. Legislation against truthful, 
progressive thinking helps to advertise the issues in- 
volved, and to cause plastic minds to desire to know. 
Even if legislative walls could be erected, progressive 
truth would leak through, filter beneath, fly above, or, 
radium-like, would radiate by processes too elusive, too 
intangible, and too fundamental to be denied its logical 
advance. Did the persecution of Columbus keep the 
earth from being round, even though many of the ideas 
of Columbus’s times have since been found to be faulty? 
Did the persecution of Harvey stop the complete cir- 
culation of human blood, even though later investiga- 
tions have corrected many of Harvey’s ideas? Could 
legislation stop biological development even though 
thousands of research workers are earnestly endeavour- 
ing to ascertain unknown truths about the processes 
involved? 


MODERN SCIENCE 7 


During the unprecedented scientific development of 
the past half century, there have frequently arisen cer- 
tain tendencies on the part of men of science which have 
caused many non-scientific persons to misunderstand 
the real nature of scientific truth. A scientific discov- 
ery is usually much involved in scientific terminology 
and is complicated by its intellectual associations with 
a field of special facts and theories. The public usually 
does not understand the terminology or the related 
facts and theories as does the scientific worker. Hence 
the public cannot fully comprehend the discovery or 
new line of thought. It is extremely difficult for the 
worker to explain, since his field and even his vocabu- 
lary are not sufficiently sensed to provide a common 
basis of understanding. So the worker in science too 
often belittles the ““common man’s”’ ability to under- 
stand and too often makes no effort to inform him. 
He does, however, more or less inconsistently expect 
- the ““common man”’ to accept his conclusions in so far 
as these scientific conclusions touch the fields in which 
this “common man” operates. The man who knows 
sometimes becomes intolerant toward the man who 
does not know, quite as the uninformed man becomes 
intolerant of the man who knows. Most men, most of 
the time at least, desire to do what is right, and will 
oppose or support an idea because their conclusions, or 
their prejudices which they think are their conclusions, 
seem right to them. ‘The intolerance of scientific men 
toward a public which is more or less uninformed about 
science may easily become quite as objectionable in- 
tellectually, and perhaps as dangerous socially, as the 


8 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


intolerance of a group which is uninformed regarding 
scientific matters. 

Further, there is no monopoly of uninformedness. 
Those who do not know science often do know much 
of human nature or practical affairs, or of government, 
or of literature, art, and social relations; and some 
of these are equally essential in accomplishing the 
things which are really worth while. It usually helps 
to get the point of view of the other man, and also 
increases the light of vision and reduces the heat of 


friction. 

One of the heaviest obligations on modern science 
requires that it shall organize and present many of its 
results so that these results may be seen and understood 
by intelligent but non-scientific persons. People will 
eventually follow the truth, but they cannot follow it 
unless they can amidst their confusion see its light at 
least often enough and clearly enough to enable them 
to keep the general direction in which truth is moving. | 
In our day they cannot be expected to follow truth too 
constantly merely by the admonitions of someone 
whose evidences are known to him but unknown to 
them. 

In the rapid development of science another serious 
social need has arisen among the science men them- 
selves. ‘The separate sectors or divisions of science have 
been so compelling in their interest, so gigantic in their 
possibilities, and so exacting upon the time and energy 
of specialists, that many specialists have lost perspec- 
tive of the whole field of science, not to speak of the 
other necessary human interests mentioned above. 


MODERN SCIENCE 9 


The specialist, however, like other people, guides his 
life by the stars which he sees, and his conclusions about 
affairs and people outside of his field are sometimes 
seriously and harmfully limited. One can and must, if 
he is a productive student, dig deep into a special sub- 
ject. But deep wells, while suggestive of depth and 
height of vision, are not suggestive of broad and 
comprehensive views. The figure would better be 
changed to that of a “skyscraper mind,” which rises to 
ereat heights and consequently may have broad and 
dependable views, since it stands upon foundations 
which are secure and since its structural materials are 
those which will endure under the seasonal and human 
exigencies of its working environment. 

One of the greatest functions of our organizations of 
science men is the bringing together of scientists from 
various sectors of science and compelling them to learn 
enough of the elements, at least, of the other fields, to 
gain some understanding of the purposes, ambitions, 
and accomplishments of other science men. It would 
not be bad for science, nor for the public, if special- 
ists were required to teach other specialists enough 
to enable all to take a reasonably elementary exami- 
nation upon the special fields of one another. 

There is another supremely important function to be 
served by means of a better public understanding of 
modern science and its uses. Science knowledge, scien- 
tific processes and appliances, have reached the stage 
where ignorance means danger, sometimes destruction. 
Far more people are killed at street crossings than be- 
fore the gas motor became common property. The air- 


10 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


plane which ‘‘won the war” has exacted the life of many 
of those who persisted in flying. Gasolene, which also 
‘won the war,’ is just coming under reasonably safe 
control. To live in a scientific age, an age of rapidly 
accumulating knowledge, imposes heavy obligations 
upon education and upon the resultant social and in- 
dustrial controls. In the presence of modern science 
those who do not know cannot long survive, else they 
must seek the primitive placés“of the earth where the 
more elemental practices may persist for atime. Even 
in these primitive places, science will soon catch up and 
there will again recur the old biological requirement to 
learn, to move, or to cease to exist. 

But the hardest question is yet to come. Has the 
common appreciation of moral obligations developed 
to a point where it is socially safe for all science knowl- 
edge to become common property? Can the common 
moral sense be trusted? Does knowledge of those 
chemicals which will readily destroy human life ever 
result in an easier suicide or in the more ready destruc- 
tion of one’s human enemies? Poison gases and other 
war inventions are so terrible that it is not even safe 
to allow all citizens to know what a few inquisitive and 
trusted scientific men have discovered. If a bio- 
chemico-physicist were to discover just how to change 
electrical potentials over an area twenty miles square, 
so that the electrons of human protoplasm would in- 
stantly break down, it would not as yet be morally safe 
for the different nations to have possession of this 
secret. Since science deals with progressive truth, it 
should not omit its obligation toward better common 


MODERN SCIENCE II 


knowledge of useful scientific truth. It dare not omit 
its due share of the obligation to have modern society 
develop in moral ideals and controls so that constructive 
and not destructive use of science shall result. 

It is surely a heavy burden that is imposed upon 
modern education. Exact knowledge and faithful in- 
terpretations of science in themselves provide large 
obligations. But the still larger one—without which 
modern science is dangerous—asks that intellectual and 
moral ideals and controls shall develop in harmony with 
erowth in possession of scientific knowledge. 


GASOLENE AS A WORLD POWER 


By Epwin E. Stosson, Pu.D. 
Director of Science Service, Washington 


HE work of the world is done by sun power. 

Whether it be done by the muscular labour of — 

horses or human beings, by the whirling of wind- 
mills or water wheels, by the burning of wood, coal, or 
oil, or by the swift and silent electric current, the energy 
comes directly or indirectly from the solar reservoir. 
““Give us this day our daily bread” 1s the same as saying 
“Give us this day our daily sunshine.” But the sun 
does not shine every day and it cannot shine on all 
sides of the earth at once and it favours different zones 
at different times of the year. 

So man in order to avoid the darkness of night and 
the cold of winter invented a way of using the sunshine 
of the past for present needs. According to the Greeks 
fre was a gift of that foresighted Titan Prometheus 
who stole fire from heaven and brought it down to man 
in a hollow reed. For this crime he was chained to the 
Caucasus and from his torn liver flowed a stream of 
black petroleum. The Greek mythologists differ as to 
whether Prometheus was ever released from his chains 
or not, and we cannot count Shelley as an authority, but 
the streams of petroleum have continued to flow in the 
Caucasus to this day. The Zoroastrians came to wor- 


I2 





© Brown Bros. 


THE FIRST OIL WELL IN THE UNITED STATES 


On Oil Creek in Pennsylvania. Col. E. L. Drake, shown in the picture 

with the high hat, began work on this well May 20, 1859, and on August 

27 of the same year struck oil at a depth of 693 feet. The well produced 
thirty barrels a day for a year 


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UIYIUM UOSIad AAI AIL OF SafIqouto nL YBnoud savy sa3vys [e1aadg “Ape AIDA JSOUNE JO} IBD B SI d19YI dI9Y AA 


VINYOAITVO NI SATIAOWOLOAV AO ATaIaA V 


a 





GASOLENE 13 


ship the Fountain of Everlasting Fire, rightly regarding 
it as somehow a gift from the sun, though how they could 
not tell, any more than can the modern geologists just 
how the energy of the solar rays came to be embodied in 
the blazing oil. Marco Polo, who passed through 
Baku on his way to Far Cathay, says that a hundred 
ships might be filled at a time from the lake of oil, and 
he notes, quite correctly, that it is not good to eat but 
good to burn and to cure the sore backs of camels. 

To-day this same Caucasian oil, which was to the 
Persians the object of adoration and to the Greeks the 
subject of a grotesque story, is to the modern world a 
source of power and the desire of all nations. It is the 
only liquid asset of the Bolsheviki and their efforts to 
bargain it off to the highest bidder broke up the Genoa 
Conference and are holding up The Hague. From 1898 
to 1901 a ten-mile square of the Baku district supplied 
nearly half the world’s output of oil and it is still the 
greatest source of the Old World. 

First Uses oF AMERICAN O1L.—But the United 
States has been favoured above all other nations in the 
endowment of oil, and it was here that it first became an 
important factor in civilization. It was from the 
earliest time used in Pennsylvania, as Marco Polo saw 
it used five hundred years before in the Caucasus, to 
cure the sore backs of beasts of burden. The Indians 
spread their blankets on the creeks that carried a film 
of oil and wrung them out. ‘The product was sold to 
the Whites as ‘“‘Seneca Oil”? for man and beast at $2 
a gallon. A little more than a century ago a well was 
being drilled for brine in Kentucky when there burst 


14 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


out instead of salt water a stream of black oil that 
literally set the river on fire. The Kentuckians as- 
cribed it to a different supernatural source from the 
Zoroastrians and called it “The Devil’s Tar.” Now- 
adays values are reversed and the driller who strikes 
brine instead of oil is disappointed. 

In 1859 Drake of Titusville, Pennsylvania, put down 
a well and thereafter sold Rock Oil at the rate of thirty 
barrels a day. The value of the new fuel was now be- 
ginning to be perceived, and after the war the great oil 
boom set in and millions were gained and lost on paper 
while petroleum and its products found their varied 
uses. The great fortunes that are peculiar to our time 
had their origin in petroleum and it would be impossible 
to overestimate their influence in all fields of modern 
life. 

Why petroleum is an unprecedented wealth producer 
and how it can be so readily monopolized by individuals 
or governments can be easily seen by reference to its 
geology and chemistry. In the first place petroleum 
comes in pockets and is therefore readily pocketable. 
It forms pools under pressure, pushed up from below by 
water and held down from above bya dome of rmpervious 
rock. ‘The first man who drills through the rock gets the 
oil, not only the oil under his own claim but much of 
what seeps in from his neighbours’ claims. Hence the 
race to get down the first well in a new field. But great 
haste means great waste. It is estimated that half the 
oil is lost through lack of system in drilling. Much of 
it runs off or is burned up before the well is brought 
under control. More of it is left in the ground through 


GASOLENE is 


the competitive drilling. At the other end of the pro- 
cess, the consumption, at least half of the product is 
wasted, either through burning the oil to make steam 
when it might be used in internal combustion engines, 
or by the careless use of the gasolene in automobiles. 
On the other hand the intermediate part of the process, 
the refining and transporting, being under unified 
management and chemical control is carried on with 
comparative efhciency and economy. Yet we hear 
little complaint over the irreparable loss of some three 
fourths of the world’s supply in the drilling and the 
using while there is furious and incessant denunciation 
of those who carry on the distribution and distillation 
because they have made so much money out of it. We 
do not seem to care how much wealth is wasted but we 
care dreadfully if somebody gets more than we do. 
Mineral oil therefore lends itself naturally to monop- 
oly because it is found in but few places in the world 
and there concentrated in small space; it is also irre- 
placeable and indispensable. But why has petroleum 
such a close connection with wealth? Here the chemist 
can give the answer. Wealth is produced by the ex- 
penditure of energy, human, animal, or inanimate. 
The unprecedented accumulation of wealth within the 
last hundred and fifty years is due to the utilization of 
external inanimate energy, chiefly the heat of combus- 
tion of fossil fuel in the steam and gasolene engine. In 
America the greatest use has been made of such sources 
and therefore this country is the richest in the world. 
If measured in the ancient way in terms of man-power 
we would each of us on the average have a train of 


1 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


twenty able-bodied slaves waiting on us day and 
night. 

This increment of energy, that has given to all of 
us comfort and conveniences beyond the power of 
potentates in former times, comes mostly from two 
simple and similar chemical reactions, the union of 
hydrogen and of carbon with oxygen, or in common 
language, burning. The first reaction, the uniting of 
hydrogen with the oxygen to form water gives more 
heat than any other combination of elements. Hydro- 
gen would, therefore, be the best possible fuel but for 
two reasons. In the first place it is too expensive. It 
is not found free in nature, except in natural gas, and 
this is rare and running out. To get the hydrogen out 
of water would require as much expenditure of energy 
as we should get out of it by burning it back again to 
water. Secondly, hydrogen is a gas and therefore not 
convenient to carry around. It would not be conveni- 
ent to have a big gas bag hitched to your car like a cap- 
tive balloon. It is true hydrogen can be liquefied but 
it does not stay so and it is then exceedingly cold. 

Carbon is tolerably abundant in many countries in 
the form of coal. But carbon has less than one fourth 
the heating power per pound that hydrogen has. 
Carbon, being a solid, is handier to use than a gas like 
hydrogen, but not so handy as a liquid would be. A 
solid has to be shovelled. A liquid will flow. Coal 
has to be mined and hoisted up from the ground. 
Petroleum is so anxious to get out that it will blow off 
the rigging when its rock prison is tapped. , 

What, then, would be the ideal fuel if we could have 


GASOLENE 17 


just what we wanted? It would be composed only of 
hydrogen and carbon. It should give on complete 
combustion only water and carbonic dioxide, innocuous 
final products, already in the air. It should contain 
no ash; leave no solid residue to foul the cylinder. It 
should contain just as much hydrogen and as little car- 
bon as possible. It should be a liquid at ordinary tem- 
peratures but be easily converted to a gas for combus- 
tion. It must not rot on keeping or freeze on cooling. 
It should not contain water because that reduces the 
heating power. Preferably it should look nice and 
clear like water and not stain things. It must not have 
a disgusting odour like carbon disulfide, though we will 
not insist upon absolute odourlessness or a pleasant 
perfume. 

Now all these requirements are found in gasolene and 
in that only. The compounds of carbon and hydrogen 
are constructed like a chain. Each link is composed 
of one carbon atom connected with two hydrogen atoms. 
The first of the series and the simplest possible is me- 
thane, CH4, but that isagas. So is the next, but when 
we get along to the fifth and sixth members of the 
methane series we get to liquids of the gasolene group. 

Just Wuat Is GasoLteNnE?—Gasolene is not a single - 
and uniform substance. You who use it know that it 
varies in quality, especially in volatility. It is simply 
the lightest part of petroleum, the part that comes over 
at the lowest temperature when the distillation of 
petroleum begins. Next comes kerosene, and then the 
heavy lubricating oils, and later vaseline and paraffin, 
while asphalt is left bchind in the still. Formerly, when 


18 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


there was no demand for gasolene, as much of it was run 
into the next fraction, the kerosene, as it would stand 
without blowing up in the lamps. Each state had to 
have an oil inspector whose duty it was to see that no 
kerosene was sold that had an ignition point below the 
safety point of the lamps. ‘There is now no difficulty 
on that score because the temptation 1s all the other 
way, to run the heavier kerosene fractions into the 
gasolene until it becomes too heavy to burn and the 
motor knocks. Inthe early days the gasolene, being in- 
jurious to the illuminating oil and not being much 
wanted anywhere, was allowed to run from the re- 
fineries into the streams, where it sometimes took fire. 
When the introduction of the automobile created a 
demand for gasolene the refiners awoke to the fact that 
they had been wasting one of the most valuable parts of 
the petroleum. Then they began to save and sell their 
lighter distillates which under ordinary conditions 
amounted to about I1 per cent. of the crude oil. 

But with the multiplication of motors this did not 
suffice. It became necessary to break up the heavy 
oils into light oils, which meant breaking up the big 
molecules into little molecules. Nobody knows ex- 
actly how petroleum was formed in the first place, nor 
even what it was made out of. But presumably it was 
made from masses of vegetable matter subjected to heat 
and pressure. If, then, we could reproduce those con- 
ditions we could shatter this sorry scheme of things and 
remould it nearer to the heart’s desire. 

This was accomplished by W. W. Burton, president 
of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, who worked 


GASOLENE 19 


out a scheme of distillation under pressure which 
cracked up the heavy oils into lighter fractions. To-day 
the Standard Oil Company of Indiana has 800 pressure 
stills which can produce 2,000,000 gallons of gasolene 
a day. This makes possible the running of 2,000,000 
motor cars. In recognition of this achievement the 
American Chemical Society bestowed upon Mr. Burton 
the medal that bears the name of Perkin, the discoverer 
of the first coal-tar dye. ‘he profits of this process are 
so great that stock in the Standard of Indiana bought for 
$100 in 1911 would be worth $37,200 ten years later. 
Crude oil is now made to give on the average 28.5 per 
cent. of gasolene by cracking and this amounts to 54.4 
per cent. of the value of its products. 

Another new source of motor fuel is the saving of the 
gasolene vapours that are contained in natural gas. 
These used to be lost but are now condensed by cooling 
and provide about 8 per cent. of our present supply. 

What the invention of the steam engine did for the 
world we can read about in any modern history. What 
the invention of the gasolene engine has done we can 
see for ourselves if we only look about us. The signing 
of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which we 
yearly celebrate by going on a picnic, was a much less 
important event in the history of the world, even in 
our own history, then the contemporary discovery of 
the possibilities of steam power. Watt has had more 
influence over the current of human affairs than Wash- 
ington. 

The Age of Steam lasted a hundred years. In 1876, 
when we were celebrating our Centennial at Philadel- 


20 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


phia, the rival and superior of the steam engine was 
born. Doctor Otto of Cologne, Germany, in that year 
made the first practicable engine run by the explosion 
of a mixture of gas and air instead of by the expansive 
force of steam. The steam engine was not thereby put 
out of business. It will continue in the service of man- 
kind so long as the coal holds out and perhaps longer. 
But the internal-combustion engine is more powerful 
and compact, simpler and more economical, and it has 
already within the observation of all of us gone farther 
and come into our lives more intimately than the steam 
engine ever did. The agile auto climbs mountain 
trails where the railroad cannot go, and reaches com- 
munities that have never been awakened by the whistle 
of alocomotive. It has made engineers out of our boys 
and girls. No schools could teach mechanics as widely 
and practically as the auto has. Gasolene has given to 
man the wings he has always longed for but which he 
had despaired of getting until he got to heaven. It has 
enabled men to go down to the sea in ships on their 
more or less lawful occasions. It has multiplied the 
magnitude of man by giving him the power to contract 
all four of the dimensions within which his activities are 
confined, the three dimensions of space and the fourth 
dimension of time. 

What is there about the gas engine that gives it this 
manifold power and adaptability? Wherein does it 
differ from the old steam engine? It is not merely in 
using a different kind of fuel, as some seem still to sup- 
pose. It is a different kind of motive power. In their 
fundamental principles, however, the two are alike. 


GASOLENE 21 


What, to begin with, does man want of an engine? He 
wants it usually to turn a wheel. And right here man 
shows his superiority to all other animate beings, for 
none of them makes use of a wheel. Man has no wheels 
in his body, whatever he may have in his head. If he 
wants, say, to turn a grindstone, he must do it by a to- 
and-fro motion of his arm. But in the course of many 
thousand years man got tired of this and then it oc- 
curred to him to shift the work from his muscles to the 
molecules. Man is naturally a shifter; therein lies the 
secret of his progress. Where could man find a multi- 
tude of molecules which would be so manageable that he 
could make them work for him for nothing? He found 
them where Lenin and Trotzky found their docile 
Bolsheviki, in a state of anarchy. In any gas the mole- 
cules have lost all sense of solidarity and reached a state 
of complete freedom and independence such as man 
fortunately has never been able to attain. It 1s self- 
determination carried to the limit, for in any gas each 
molecule is at liberty to do what it likes without regard 
to what any other molecule may do. Every molecule 
therefore goes straight ahead in its own way until it runs 
up against some other molecule or a wall; then it gives 
the obstacle a kick and goes off in some other direction. 

The kick is light since the molecule is small, but if all 
~ the kicks could be combined and turned in one direction 
they would amount to something and could be used for 
something. Force directed by intelligence produces 
power, and power directed by intelligence produces prog- 
ress. As soon as man acquired the intelligence he util- 
ized the aimless force of the molecules knocking against 


22 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


the prison walls of the containing vessel as a motive 
power for his own purposes. This was accomplished 
by the simple expedient of making one of the partitions 
movable. If a crowd of molecules are imprisoned in a 
steel cylinder they bump incessantly against all the sides 
equally as though trying to get out. If, now, one of 
the ends is a piston head, slipping easily in the cylinder, 
this gets shoved out by the constant pounding until 
finally the exhausted molecules make their escape into 
the open air. 

Wuart Happens in AN Encine?—If the molecules 
are crowded into a prison half the size by shoving in the 
piston partition they naturally knock against it twice 
as often. ‘This observation is so obvious that you will 
probably not appreciate it properly until you know that 
it is called “‘Boyle’s Law.’’ Then again if you shove 
in the piston head suddenly and crowd the molecules 
into smaller space they naturally get hot about it and 
do more knocking than ever. ‘The hotter they get the 
harder they pound against the prison walls. ‘This also 
is SO easy to.see that you will not get credit for it, even 
from yourself, unless you dignify it by calling it the 
“Law of Charles” and express it in such words as: ““ The 
pressure of a gas at constant volume is proportional to 
the absolute temperature.” 

Having now in mind the two laws that all anarchic 
molecules obey we can see how we can get the most work 
out of a given number of them. Obviously this will be, 
first, to confine them in the smallest space and force 
them to fight their way out to the largest possible space. 
Secondly, to get them as hot as possible and let them 


GASOLENE 23 


cool off as completely by exhaustion. Or in other words, 
the eficiency of an engine depends upon getting the 
longest possible range of pressure and temperature be- 
tween the beginning and the end. The automobile is 
run by two horses, heat and cold. The higher the 
heat and the lower the cold, the greater the power. 

We can use any gas we like for our engine, for all 
gases behave about the same. Naturally steam was the 
first gas used in the cylinder. But steam has to be 
made separately in a boiler and then conducted into 
the cylinder. And a boiler is a bulky thing and oc- 
casionally blows up. To heat the boiler there must 
be a furnace and to the furnace there must be attached 
a tall chimney to create a draft. A pile of coal must 
be at hand and a stoker to shovel it in. If the engine 
is large and complicated there must be an engineer, duly 
licensed and a member of the union. There is inevit- 
ably tremendous waste of potential energy, for the steam 
has at best a small fall of temperature while it is doing 
its work in the cylinder. It is not nearly so hot as the 
furnace gases which are lost up the chimney. 

If in some way we could combine the furnace and 
the boiler and burn the fuel in the cylinder itself, right 
where we want to do the work, we could take ad- 
vantage of the high temperature to get high pressure 
and simplify the apparatus. This is just what is done 
in the gasolene engine. The cylinder is made the fur- 
nace. Fill it up, by a jerk of the piston rod, with air 
mingled with a littie vaporized gasolene, set it afire with 
an electric spark. The carbon and the hydrogen of the 
gasolene unite with the oxygen of the air, forming car- 


24 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


bon dioxide and steam. The heat of combustion raises 
both these gases to a high temperature and therefore to 
a high pressure and the piston is pushed out and turns 
the wheel, and there we are. We have done away with 
the big boiler, the tall smokestack, the fiery furnace, the 
pile of coal, the skilled engineer and the freman. We 
can have a range of temperature two or three times as 
great in the gas engine as in the steam engine and so get 
two or three times the efficiency. ‘That is, more than 
twice the percentage of the total energy in the fuel may 
be got out in the form of usable energy by thegasolene 
engine besides its advantages in compactness, clean- 
liness and convenience. No wonder then that it has 
transformed the conditions of modern life. 

The steam engine and the gas engine passed from 
peaceful competition to armed conflict in 1914 and the 
newer motive power won the war. Senator Berenger 
of France said that the Germans expected to win be- 
cause they had the advantage over France in coal. 
But the Allies won with the aid of oil. ‘“‘It was a vic- 
tory of the automobile over the railroad,” he says. 
This is confirmed by Lord Curzon, who said: ‘‘The 
Allied cause was floated to victory on a wave of oil.” 

We first realized the possibilities of the new military 
machine in September, 1914, when we read that the 
taxicabs and omnibuses of Paris had been mobilized 
to carry Gallieni’s army out from the capital to attack 
Von Kluck’s invading forces in the rear and aid in 
driving them back from the Marne. 

From that time on both parties relied more and more 
upon the mobility of the motor. Germany, having no 


GASOLENE 25 


oil fields of her own, was forced to seek a supply in 
Poland and Roumania and so turned her attention 
from France and Belgium to the eastern front. 

Thanks to the supply of American petroleum the 
steady line of camions was kept going into Verdun and 
so the enemy did not pass the cornerstone of the French 
frontier. But in December, 1917, the French petroleum 
trust notified their government that their stock would 
be exhausted by the following March and that they 
could not supply the army in time to meet the German 
spring attack. The monthly consumption of gasolene 
was 30,000 tons and the stock had fallen to 28,000 and 
soon would be reduced to nothing. Then Premier 
Clemenceau sent an urgent cablegram to President 
Wilson, personally requesting him to use his authority 
to bring the 100,000 tons of tankers from the Pacific to 
the Atlantic where they might replace those that the 
Germans had sunk. M. Clemenceau closed his appeal 
with the words: “If the Allies do not want to lose the 
war it is necessary that fighting France, in the hour of 
the supreme German shock, should possess the gasolene 
which is as necessary as blood in to-morrow’s battle.” 

President Wilson complied, and the Petroleum War 
Board supplied the ships used to bring the motor fuel 
to France. Thanks to this prompt action Foch was able 
to send an auto army to fill the gaps next spring when 
the British gave way before the German drive toward 
Amiens. 

It is not necessary for me to speak of the gasolene- 
driven submarines, for what they did and what they 
nearly did is all too fresh in the memory of us all. But 


26 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


we should recall that the swift motor boats that guarded 
the coasts were also run by gasolene. 

Nor can I stop to discuss what the new art of aviation 
meant in the war. Leonardo da Vinci designed a fly- 
ing machine but it had to wait for five hundred years 
for a motor light and strong enough to carry it through — 
the air. But aviation as yet plays little part in our 
everyday lives so let us turn to the automobile, whose 
influence we can observe for and on ourselves. 

In 1896 there were only four gasolene cars in the 
United States. To-day there are 10,000,000. Of these 
four pioneer automobiles, one was built by Elwood 
Haynes of Kokomo, Indiana, one by Henry Ford of 
Detroit, one by C. E. Duryea of Pennsylvania, and one 
by Benz of Germany. 

These early cars were called “horseless carriages” 
and that is what they looked like, as though the horses 
had been unhitched and the buggy left to run down hill 
alone. Many inventions come in this negative way; 
wireless telephones, fireless cookers, smokeless powder 
and the like. Something left out makes something new. 
This seems to be also nature’s way, for biologists tell us 
that valuable mutations in plants and animals often 
arise from the omission of some single chromosome that 
has accidentally got lost in the shuffle. 

Gradually, however, the motor car ceased to look like 
a mere mutilated vehicle and assumed a form and sym- 
metry of its own. ‘The horse, who had most reason to 
view with alarm the advent of his fiery rival, soon 
became oblivious to it. The machine, at first re- 
fused admittance to the highways, came in the course 


GASOLENE 27 


of time to dominate them. Up to 1896 automobiles 
were prohibited from running on the English public 
roads faster than four miles an hour and even then the 
law required that a man should walk in front waving a 
red flag. This had a tendency to hamper the develop- 
ment of the automobile in England. Just so, a hun- 
dred years before, Parliament had refused to allow a 
thirty-mile railroad to be built on which Stephenson’s 
engine could run from Manchester to the sea. “Thomas 
Creevy, who was on the committee that killed the bill in 
1825, writes in his diary: 


Well—this devil of a railway is strangled at last . . . this infernal 
nuisance—the loco-motive Monster, carrying eighty tons of goods, 
and navigated by a tail of smoke and sulphur, coming through 
every man’s grounds between Manchester and Liverpool. 


Now the situation is reversed and the auto has the 
upper hand. It is already proposed to prohibit the use 
of horses in New York City within a few years. Cer- 
tainly anybody with a heart, who has seen the city in a 
snowstorm when the poor horses slip and fall on the icy 
pavement and have to be whipped to force them 
through the drifts with a light load, will rejoice when 
they have been displaced by the tireless and unfeeling 
truck. Suppose there had never been horses and livery 
stablesinthe city. What would happen to the man who 
tried to introducethem? ‘The police, the health depart- 
ment, the humane societies and the street cleaners would 
unite to banish horses from the city, but they would 
have to work quickly to get ahead of the mob. In any 
innovation the majority of men see the disadvantages 


28 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


before they see the advantages, while in regard to the 
things to which they are accustomed they ignore the 
faults and value the virtues. 

Tue GREATEST INVENTIONS.—Macaulay says: “Of 
all inventions, the alphabet and printing press alone 
excepted, those that have shortened distance have done 
the most for humanity.’”’ ‘Then gasolene, which has 
given man a higher speed than he ever attained before, 
must rank among the most beneficial of human in- 
ventions. It has enabled man to travel in one hour 180 
miles in an automobile and 220 miles in an airplane, 
and to rise to a height of 41,000 feet in the air, 2,000 
feet higher than Mount Everest, which British explorers 
have been trying vainly to ascend. 

Such records, though they may gratify man’s am- 
bition, do not benefit his life. The real advantages of 
rapid transit are that it gives him greater power to 
overcome the limitations of nature and lengthens his: 
life as measured by his activities. For practical pur- 
poses distances are measured by the watch, not by the 
map. ‘Twenty minutes from Times Square” means 
something definite, if true. “Ten miles from Times 
Square’? means nothing, for it varies widely according 
to direction. 

The dimensions of cities, counties, states, and na- 
tions depend upon the rapidity of communication. 
The faster our vehicles the larger may be our political 
divisions. ‘The smallest territorial unit of our country 
used to be the school district, which was measured by 
the length of the legs of the littlest children. This vir- 
tually ceases to have significance when the school ’bus 


GASOLENE ies 


can collect the children from a county and bring them 
to acentral school. ‘The radius of a metropolitan area 
is determined by the average time taken out of the day 
in coming in to shop or office and going home again. 
The extent of territory reached by a newspaper or a 
store depends on the delay in delivery. Cutting the 
time in half means multiplying the tributary territory 
by four, for the area increases as the square of the 
radius. One may almost say that the area increases 
as the cube since we have by skyscrapers invaded the 
third dimension and are building cubical habitations. 

Any new scheme of speedier intercommunication 
tends to expand the boundaries of political divisions. 
But it does more than that. It weakens the boundaries 
themselves. Statesmen may cut up continents into 
countries but science knows no nationality. Ideas will 
somehow leak through from one language to another. 
Print and pictures will penetrate anywhere. The map 
may be coloured like a crazy-quilt, but nobody can put 
up partitions in the ether. ‘The frontier may be lined 
with soldiers, the radio will overreach them. ‘The three- 
mile limit of the high seas has ceased to have meaning. 
The self-propelled projectile, the auto-airplane, carrying 
death in its bombs, has no limit to its range. No wall, 
trench, or barbed-wire fence can shut out the molecules 
of poison gas. The airplane soars over custom houses. 
The submarine dives under blockades. ‘The automo- 
bile runs across tariff walls. 

Science erases the artificial barriers that the politician 
erects. As the world comes under the sway of science 
political divisions will be impossible to maintain, 


30 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


Commerce, the child of science, is doing more to pro- 
mote the unification-of the world than-all-the-politicians. 
Politics is the art of managing men. It was therefore of 
supreme importance in the days when war and work 
were done by men. But as war and work come to be 
done by machinery the importance of the politician 
diminishes as the importance of the engineer increases. 

The financial side of the automobile business is in- 
teresting but puzzling. The best estimate of the an- 
nual expenditure on motor cars in this country for 1921 
makes the total out to be $7,783,000,000, distributed 
as follows: 


New Cars i ee en tee 
Depreciation). 4/54) Sa ee), oem 
Interest 3). i 295,000,000 
Tires pete NAS 8 (0M) eh te ne 450,000,000 
Grasolene 2/0. 00 Tiga Caan oe 823,000,000 
Oa ey OS Uae a ape a 175,000,000 
Garage . RD Pap hatin lon diag. 552,000,000 
Repairs and Supplies ney Obes (ae ene Ee 
Insurance 92 200 ae a 185,000,000 
CARES uM ate PEE MANN an pila \iig's | 275,000,000 
Drivers’ Cereal iP OT AN Ca 600,000,000 


Road. Maintenance 210.0 ieee a ee 180,000,000 
$75783,000,000 


That is to say, we are spending approximately 
eight billions of dollars a year on something that did 
not exist twenty-five years ago. 

Where does the money come from? I am not com- 
plaining of extravagance. I am not saying that it is a 
cent too much. But it would be interesting to find out, 
if we could, from what sources this immense amount of 


GASOLENE 31 


money has been derived. Here is a new channel of 
expenditure into which an enormous flood of funds has 
been suddenly turned. From what other channels has 
it been diverted? If we say it comes from the recent 
general increment of wealth or the fictitious increment 
due to inflation, then we can put the question in another 
way: For what would this eight billions of dollars be 
spent if there were no motor cars? 

I do not know that the question can be answered 
statistically but perhaps you get an answer from indi- 
vidual observation or experience. When a man buys a 
car and spends say a thousand dollars a year on it in 
interest, depreciation and supplies, what does he 
economize on? Does he take it out of his savings or 
what he otherwise would have laid up for a rainy day? 
But savings and investments have also increased during 
this period. Does a family after it owns an auto spend 
less on clothing or food or theatres or books or summer 
resorts or golf? Or does it spend more? Is there a 
saving on shoe leather by using rubber tires? But 
more is spent on shoes and clothing than there used to 
be. So of almost everything else. The only field in 
which a definite falling off can be discerned and ascribed 
to the introduction of the auto is in carriages, city sta- 
bles and the like, but this is little compared with what 1s 
spent on motor cars and motoring. 

The building of railroad mileage has been virtually 
at a standstill for a number of years, though the popu- 
lation and business activity of the country have been 
increasing. It may be said, then, that a large part of 
the money spent for motor transportation would other- 


32 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


wise have been put into spur-line railroads, electric 
railways or else, which is more probable, there would 
have been much less in the way of transportation facili- 
ties available and consequently less wealth created. The 
creation of rail lines covering the network of highways 
over which motor cars travel, would probably be pro- 
hibitive in cost. 

A saving in the wages of farm workers has been an- 
other source of income for automobile investment. 
There has been a drift of farm population to the cities 
without as yet a noticeable diminution of the volume 
of farm products. The decrease in labour has been 
taken care of by farm machinery, including motor 
transportation, which has tremendously increased the 
amount of time at the individual farmer’s disposal as 
compared with the horse-and-buggy days. 

Another source of possible saving is in city rents by 
removal to the suburbs and country, which would leave 
the difference in rent available for motor transportation. 
But city rents have not perceptibly fallen and there is 
also the extension of city deliveries into the vicinity to 
balance this economy. 

Besides the question of money expenditure there is 
the question of time expenditure, equally important 
and equally unanswerable. Leaving out of considera- 
tion the commercial use of motor cars there is an enor- 
mous amount of time spent in pleasure riding, in taking 
care of the machine and talking about it and in sitting 
around waiting for a new tire to be put on. How was 
this time spent formerly or how would it be spent now 
if there were no automobiles? Here we are not both- 


GASOLENE 33 


ered by a change in the standard of measurement. The 
length of the day is one of the few things that the war 
has not altered. Has there been a decline in sleeping, 
reading, seeing motion pictures, playing cards, going to 
church or what? Unfortunately we have no census 
figures on how we spend our spare time although many 
less important queries are asked us by the Census 
Bureau. 

I used to ask such questions as these of my students in 
the School of Journalism at Columbia and while the 
answers were not always valuable I am sure the ques- 
tions were. [he important thing is to get a realization 
of the innumerable and various ways in which any such 
invention affects all our lives. The same question 
would often bring opposite answers but I was not under 
the painful necessity of marking either one of them 
wrong. ‘Jake, for instance, this question of the effect 
of the automobile on church attendance. Some of my 
students would report that the congregations had fallen 
off, for the people went riding on sunny days while on 
rainy days they could not be expected to go to church. 
But students from other sections would say that church 
attendance had increased because the people could 
come from many miles around and it took less time. 
There would seem to be something in this because the 
churches have grown in membership during the auto- 
mobile era and why should people join a church if they 
do not go to its meetings? 

Another question bringing different answers was the 
effect of the automobile on the spirit of democracy. 
Students from New York City were apt to say that it 


34 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


had intensified the tension between social classes be- 
cause the poor pedestrian resented having to turn out 
of the road at the honk of the plutocrat and receive a 
whiff of scorched gasolene in return. On the other hand 
students from the West reported that the automobile 
was an agency for democracy for it had wiped out the 
distinction between classes. Formerly when the few 
had buggies and the rest had to ride to town in lumber 
wagons the former set looked down on the other but 
now that all had automobiles they were substantially on 
a level. ‘This must be the case in such states as Cali- 
fornia, lowa, South Dakota and Nebraska, which have 
one motor vehicle for each five and a fraction persons, 
that is, one for every family. 

Once I asked my class to “specify the influence of the 
automobile in political, commercial, social, and martial 
affairs.”’ I got unexpected answers, for some students 
seemed to have difficulty in reading my writing on the 
blackboard and mistook the “martial” for “marital.” 
But I was glad of the misunderstanding for the answers 
were interesting. Some said that automobiles pro- 
moted marriages by providing courting parlours but 
others said they dissolved marriages for similar reasons. 
Here, as usually, the truth lies not in the mean but at 
the extremes. ‘Iwo opposites may both be true but if 
we average them we may get nothing, or a falsehood. 
Many a fallacy has come into sociology through dealing 
with an average man who does not exist. 

It was commonly assumed that the automobile 
would relieve the congestion of our cities and check 
what was called their ‘“‘abnormal growth.” The mental 


GASOLENE 35 


conservatism of the masses of mankind leads them to 
call anything “abnormal” that is merely unprecedented. 
‘The expectation that there would be an exodus from the 
cities if opportunity were offered was based upon the 
unconscious assumption that people were more anxious 
to get out of the city than to get in. But it seems on 
the contrary that the pressure of population is from the 
rarer to the more densely inhabited districts: the re- 
verse of the law of gases, for men do not always behave 
like molecules. Our cities continue to grow and the 
bigger they are the faster they grow. Autos are more 
used to bring countrymen into the town than towns- 
men out to the country. However the balance lies the 
net result is to bring about a greater mixing of rural 
and urban population. God made the country. Man 
made the city. Gasolene made the suburb. 

CHANGES IN THE CountTRy.—Lhe roadside inn has 
been revived. Front rooms of farmhouses, formerly 
only opened for weddings and funerals, have been turned 
into tea houses. Apples and berries, sweet corn and 
melons, are set out on a box by the roadside in charge of 
a child as salesman and the passing autos take their pick 
of the produce as though it were a cafeteria. ‘This 
brings the grower and eater directly together and omits 
the middle manor men. ‘That the city dweller is led by 
a love of nature into the country is evidenced by his 
effort to bring the country back with him by filling his 
car with other people’s flowering trees and bundles of 
flowers. But all men kill the thing they love. Before 
the end of the season there are few flowers left within 
the radius of the afternoon ride and next season there 


36 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


may be none, unless some means may be found for add- 
ing brains to enthusiasm. A sylvan solitude loses its 
chief attraction when it becomes densely thronged. 

The motor furniture van has facilitated the fondness 
of Americans for moving. All the contents of a seven- 
room flat in New York City may be stowed, without 
crating, in a van and set up in a house in Washington 
next day without breakage, loss, or delay. Already the 
motor truck is a close rival to the railroad car in ton- 
nage carried. (In 1921, tonnage carried by truck, 
I,430,000,000; by railroads, 1,641,000,000). In the 
number of passengers and the number of miles they 
were carried the motor cars have gone far beyond the 
trains. (In 1921, passengers carried in motor cars, 
7,000,000; in railroad cars, 1,000,000. Passenger mile- 
age: motor cars 71,000,000, railroads 37,000,000). 

The spread of the automobile created a demand for 
new materials in large quantities, for something that 
would give a stouter skeleton and a softer tread. 
Metals like vanadium and molybdenum, names so 
unfamiliar to the people that they had to be taught in 
advertisements how to spell and pronounce them before 
they could ask for them, were needed to give steel a 
greater elasticity and strength, and these “rare ele- 
ments” had to be provided by the thousands of tons. 
During the automobile races of 1905 in Florida a French 
machine went to smash. ‘There happened to be hang- 
ing about, a man with an abnormal curiosity, Henry 
Ford. He picked up a fragment of the wrecked racer, 
a valve stem, and found it lighter and stronger than 
anything he could make. He had it analyzed and 


GASOLENE 37 


found that it contained vanadium, a metal that Ameri- 
can steel makers did not know how to use. Special 
furnaces had to be made for it since vanadium melts at 
3,000 degrees Fahrenheit and the ordinary steel furnace 
could not run above 2,700 degrees. But vanadiumsteel 
is two and a half times as strong for equal weight as 
common steel and was therefore peculiarly fitted for a 
car that was to be light and tough, as well as cheap and 
simple. | 

THe BEGINNINGS OF RuBBER.—The boom in rubber 
had begun before, in the Bicycle Age, when an Irish 
horse doctor named Dunlop tied a rubber tube around 
the rim of his boy’s velocipede, and blew it full of air. 
Brazilian forests could not supply the caoutchouc 
needed for pneumatic tires and electrical apparatus, so 
attention was turned to the Congo, where a reporter for 
the New York Herald named Stanley had established 
a Free State under the patronage of the leading Euro- 
pean nations and the United States. The protecting 
powers, anxious to make the natives safe and happy and 
fearing that they might be exploited if put under one of 
the greater powers, picked out a benevolent looking old 
king with a long white beard and gave him a man- 
date for the Congo. King Leopold of Belgium was a 
high liver and a free spender in the promotion of the 
fine arts, especially drama and dancing, and was not 
content with the 300 to 800 per cent. income on the capi- 
tal invested. So the Belgian officials in the Congo, to 
get their tale of rubber, drove the negroes deeper into 
the jungle. Men were murdered, women were flogged, 
children had their hands cut off. Finally the Congo 


38 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


atrocities aroused the moral sense of the world and the 
Free State was rescued from the hands of Leopold. 

In 1910 the price of Para rubber had risen to $2.00 or 
$3.00 a pound and the forests were being depleted of the 
trees. Then science came to the rescue and showed 
how an unlimited supply of the precious gum could be 
obtained without robbing the natives or ruining the trees. 
This was by cultivating the rubber tree. The fore- 
sighted British and Dutch set out rubber plantations 
and produced a better product than thewild rubber for 25 
cents a pound or less. The United States consumes 
some 75 per cent. of the world’s rubber but it is all 
foreign grown. Akron, Ohio, alone manufactures over 
a third of the world’s rubber. We found what it meant 
to have neglected to cultivate our own garden when the 
war broke out and threatened to ruin the third largest 
of our industries by taking off our tires. We had to pay 
whatever the British and the Dutch cared to charge us, 
and they reaped a rich harvest from their providence, 
but in 1920, when the automobile business took a sud- 
den slump, the price of rubber fell from 55 cents a 
pound to 13. Three per cent. of the rubber plantations 
of the world are now owned by American companies but 
none of them have been placed in our own tropical 
possessions. Dutch and British dependencies are 
evidently considered more dependable than ours. So 
we see that development of a new motive power affects 
international relations everywhere. The same thing 
may bring ruin to the Congo and prosperity to the 
Malay Peninsula. Recently the British have put an 
export tax on their rubber and we are beginning to 


GASOLENE 39 


wake up to the desirability of having a few rubber trees 
in our own yard. So Congress has consented to ap- 
propriate $500,000 to see if we cannot grow rubber 
under the American flag in the Philippines or elsewhere. 

Hardly had the automobile been born before it began 
to complain about the roads, especially in America. 
In Europe the roads were better than ours, thanks to 
the Romans who, whenever they conquered a country, 
made a good road through it leading straight to Rome 
and so solid that it lasts to this day. The French cars 
that we first imported groaned dreadfully over our 
rough roads, sometimes indeed balked at travelling in 
the dirt. So we resolved to mend our ways and have 
done wonders in a few years. In the period 1910-1921 
over two and a half billion dollars were spent in road 
construction in the United States. The Federal 
Government has come to the aid of the states and at the 
end of 1921 there had been completed 12,900 miles of 
good roads, costing about $221,000,000, of which the 
Federal Government had contributed 46 per cent. 

Although the improvement of highways is chiefly due 
to the demands of the motor car they ease the labour of 
the surviving horses. The automobiles wear out the 
roads more than horse-drawn vehicles but on the other 
hand they contribute heavily to the government rev- 
enues. New York City alone takes in $6,000,000 a 
year in motor fees—not counting fines. In 1921 the 
states received in registration and license fees and gas- 
olene tax more than $132,000,000. Altogether it is est1- 
mated that motor vehicles paid into the treasuries, state, 
national and municipal, $341,300,000 in 1921. 


40 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


Taking the locomotive off the rail and putting it on 
the road is in itself a revolution of wide-reaching in- 
fluence. With a network of good roads covering the 
country and with vehicles that require no other track, 
our population has acquired a flexibility of movement 
that has amazing consequences. ‘The jitney can shift its 
routes from day to day according to where the people 
want to go, while the tramcar must stick to its trolley 
and track regardless of trafic. A touring car can 
change its mind in a moment’s caprice while the rail- 
road train must follow the time-table. In England 
the rural districts are getting disturbed by the inva- 
sions of cockneys in the char-a-banc or motor lorry. 

The transformation of the farm by motor fuel, strik- 
ing as it seems, is only beginning. Agriculture has so 
far been comparatively little affected by the industrial 
revolution. ‘This is because the revolutionary agent, 
the steam engine, has not found a place upon the farm 
as it has in the factory. Farm work is too varied and 
scattered to be run by a central power plant. Look 
into one of our big steel plants or machine shops and 
you will be struck by the scarcity of men. ‘The building 
seems deserted when it is really most active. Here and 
there is a man moving about looking after things. 
Groups of three or four may be standing by a process 
and occasionally intervening. If you find a bunch of a 
dozen straining their muscles in lifting or pulling you 
may be sure that something has gone wrong with the 
machinery and they are fixing it up. 

The human muscular labour that has been so largely 
eliminated from the factory is still the mainstay of 


GASOLENE 4I 


the farm. ‘The horse aids man but does not supplant 
him. The gasolene motor may ‘do for the farmer 
what the steam engine could not. The motor is 
small, light, portable, cheap and easily managed. The 
tractor 1s capable of doing the work of two or three 
teams of horses although it seems that the farmer must 
still keep a team or two. For the road haul and 
running to town the motor vehicle is rapidly displacing 
the old lumber wagon and buggy. ‘There are about 
three million motor vehicles used on American farms. 
Of these 150,000 are trucks. ‘The states having most 
cars on farms are Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio. ‘The states 
having most trucks on farms are Pennsylvania, New 
York, and Iowa. In many places gasolene has knocked 
the picturesque milkmaid off her three-legged stool. 
A motor will milk a dozen cows at a time and never 
complain of the chores, and the mechanical milkmaid 
is more sanitary. ‘he day of the open pail is passing. 
We may hope to see the man with the hoe supplanted 
by the man with the Ford. His brow will not slant so 
much, for the farmer of the future will have to be a 
high-brow to manage power machinery. 

Where will the fuel come from to run all these new 
machines? ‘The world’s oil-tank is running dry and we 
are not yet in sight of a new supply. The United 
States, that was the best endowed, has been most ex- 
travagant. We have wasted the greater part of our oil 
and have sold to everybody that would buy. Now, like 
the foolish virgins, we must ask others for oil and are 
likely to get the same reply. 

Nobody knows how much petroleum there is left in 


42 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


the ground in various parts of the world, but it is evi: 
dent that it is not enough to go around. 

According to the estimate of the United States Geo- 
logical Survey there is still underground in the United 
States some six billion barrels of oil. This seems like 
a lot, but we are burning over half a billion a year. Half 
a billion goes into six billion twelve times which would 
put the date of the practical exhaustion of American 
oil fields in 1934 at the present rate. But the rate of 
consumption is increasing. Between 1910 and 1921 the 
consumption of crude oil in the United States arose 68 
per cent., while the domestic production increased only 
56 per cent. ‘Therefore our importations increased 600 
per cent. for the same period. Last year we had to im- 
port more than 125,000,000 barrels of petroleum and we 
will have to import more and more every year hereafter 
—if we can get it. 

What can take the place of gasolene for the motor! 
There are two present possibilities: shale oil and alcohol. 
Either will be more expensive and less satisfactory, 
so the transition will bring about a new sociological 
transformation. 

I have shown how naturally the distribution and dis- 
tillation of petroleum led to the concentration of 
great wealth in the hands of a few individuals. Many 
of those who “‘struck it rich”’ in the early days spent 
their money about as quickly as they got it on reckless 
personal extravagance. This had only a temporary 
effect on society and that altogether bad. But greater 
wealth has come into the hands of some who have 
spent it in carefully contrived means for public welfare. 


GASOLENE 43 


Mr. Rockefeller’s donations to education and welfare 
organizations amount to more than half a billion dol- 
lars. From this source about $10,000,000 a year 1s 
dispensed, largely for medical education and _ public 
sanitation. Last year two millions were promised to 
Harvard for a school of health, a million to Columbia, 
three and one half millions for rebuilding the medical 
schools of Brussels. A complete modern medical school 
has been established in Peking and twenty-five other 
medical centres in China have been helped. Consider 
what it means for the four hundred million people of 
China to have scientific research established there at 
this critical period in their history. Nineteen coun- 
tries besides our southern states have been helped in 
unhooking the hookworm. Campaigns against yellow 
fever and malaria have been instigated the world over. 
How much does that mean for the increase of human 
health and energy? Notice that these donations, large 
as they are, do not compare with what the communities 
concerned will themselves spend in the work thus 
started. Whocan estimate the influence of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago and of the other universities which its 
founding has effected? Here are profound and far- 
reaching sociological effects resulting from the almost 
accidental accumulation of this wealth in the hands of 
one particular man. Any other man or group of men 
would have spent it differently, worse or more wisely, 
as you choose to think. 

How Has Gaso_tene AFFECTED Ust—I must not 
close without mention of the psychological effects of the 
introduction of gasolene, its influence on the mind of 


44 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


man. ‘The horseman realizes that he is dealing with an 
intelligent or a wilful, capricious, and perhaps vicious 
animal, whose conduct will be affected by his own tem- 
per. The chauffeur knows that he is handling a ma- 
chine which cannot be punished or coaxed. Anger has 
no effect on an auto-engine. To display or even to feel 
any emotion toward it is simply silly. In Wells’s Freu- 
dian novel, “‘The Secret Places of the Heart,” the man 
who in a fit of fury smashes up his wife’s dainty sedan 
betrays thereby his subconscious animosity toward the 
owner. ‘The substitution of machinery for all slave and 
animal power and even in large part for personal service 
must in the long run have very profound effects on 
human character. 

A professor of psychiatry tells me that he prescribes 
automobile driving for certain types of nervous patients, 
especially such as suffer from inability to concentrate 
their minds on anything outside of themselves or who 
are deficient in quick decision. The chauffeur who 
hesitates is lost. The automobile obviously cultivates 
celerity of decision on the part of the pedestrian as well 
as of the driver. When the automobile first came into use 
it was said that it was dividing the population into two 
classes: the quick and the dead. ‘This has ceased to be 
a joke. More than twelve thousand persons are killed 
each year in the United States by automobiles. How 
many persons do you suppose were killed in Great Bri- 
tain during the late war by all the shells and bombs 
from German ships and airplanes and zeppelins? Six 
hundred forty-two, or about 1 per cent. of our death 
rate from motor cars: 


GASOLENE 45 


The acquisition of external energy, as in employment 
of gasolene, means an augmentation of the individual. 
The management of a machine gives one a sense of 
personal power, much like that of the consciousness of 
controlling other human beings but less harmful in its 
reflex effect on the possessor of the power. ‘This sense 
of power is doubtless one of the chief reasons for the 
fondness for fast driving. ‘The best expression of this 
feeling that I have found in literature is the following 
passage in Maurice Maeterlinck’s essay on the automo- 


bile in ‘“The Double Garden”’: 


The pace grows faster and faster, the delirious wheels cry aloud in 
their gladness. And at first the road comes moving towards me, 
like a bride waving palms, rhythmically keeping time to some joy- 
ous melody. But soon it grows frantic, springs forward, and throws 
itself madly upon me, rushing under the car like a furious torrent, 
whose foam lashes my face; it drowns me beneath its waves, it 
blinds me with its breath! . . . Now the road drops sheer into 
the abyss, and the magical carriage rushes ahead of it. ‘The trees, 
that for so many slow-moving years have serenely dwelt on its 
borders, shrink back in dread of disaster. They seem to be hasten- 
ing one to the other to approach their green heads, and in startled 
groups to debate how to bar the way of the strange apparition. 
But as this rushes onward, they take panic, and scatter and fly, 
each one seeking its own habitual place; and as I pass they bend 
tumultuously forward, and their myriad leaves, quick to the mad 
joy of the force that is chanting its hymn, murmur in my ears the 
voluble psalm of Space, acclaiming and greeting the enemy that 
hitherto has always been conquered but now at last triumphs: 
Speed. . . . Space and Time, its invisible brother, are perhaps 
the two great enemies of mankind. Could we conquer these, we 
should be as the gods. 


When I told M. Maeterlinck how much I admired it 
he laughed heartily and said that the inspiration of the 
thapsody was one of the primitive five-horse-power 


46 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


machines of twenty years ago that got out of breath 
when it climbed a hill and occasionally broke down on a 
level. But I do not think he can write any better now 
that he has a modern racer. 

The French seem to be quicker than we in perceiving 
the poetry in modern inventions. Maeterlinck’s prose 
poem on the first automobile may be matched by Ed- 
mond Rostand’s sonnet on the first airplane: 


Javais sur la montagne un grand jardin secret 
Mais, ce soir, se levant du fond de la campagne, 
Le long biplan que I’ceil des bergers accompagne 
Vint a ma solitude infliger un soufflet. 

Car, doublant mon toit basque ou, presque, il s’éraflait, 
Le monstre pour lequel il n’est plus de montagne 
Passa sur mon jardin comme le vent d’Espagne, 
Et mon sable eut son ombre, et mon lac son reflet! 
Jaurais da t’en vouloir, O beau monstre de toile, 
Moi qui n’ayant cherché que l’aigle et que l’étoile 
Suis venu sur ce mont, loin du plaisir humain, 
Pour avoir a moi seul un ciel qui se déploie! 

Mais j’ai crié d’orgueil et j’ai pleuré de joie 
Lorsque j’ai vu mon ciel devenir un chemin!! 


"For the benefit of those who do not read French my wife has put this 
poem into English verse: 


A high and secret garden was my own. 

This evening, rising from the low champaign, 
While shepherds stood astare, the long biplane 
Above my sheltered seat was swiftly blown, 

And buzzed about my Basque roof with its drone! 
The linen monster mountains bar in vain, 

Passed o’er my garden like the wind from Spain; 
A moment’s shadow on my lake was thrown. 

Fair monster! Should I not have wished you far; 
I, who to seek the eagle and the star, 

To claim a space of heaven for my abode, 

Had climbed the height to human joy denied? 

I wept with joy and shouted out with pride 

To see this heaven of mine become a road! 


GASOLENE 47 


GUIDE To FuRTHER READING 


“Discoveries and Inventions of the Twentieth Century,” by 
Edward Cressy. (Dutton and Company.) Contains chapters on 
petroleum and gas engines. 

“Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century,” 
by Sir W. A. Tilden. (Dutton and Company.) 1916. Contains 
chapters on petroleum and rubber. 

“‘ America’s Power Resources,” by C. G. Gilbert and J. E. Pogue. 
(Century Company.) 1921. Shows the economic significance of 
coal, oil and water-power. See also the same authors’ “Energy 
Resources of the United States,’ Bulletin 102, Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, Washington. 

“Gasoline and Other Motor Fuels,” by Carleton Ellis and Joseph 
V. Meigs. (Van Nostrand Company.) 1922. Comprehensive 
volume on the manufacture of gasolene. 

Reports of the United States Bureau of Mines for statistics of 
production of petroleum products. 

Yearbook of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce 
(N. Y.), and current motor magazines for figures on the development 
of the industry. 

For the sociological effects of the introduction of the gasolene 
motor the reader will have to rely upon his own powers of observa- 
tion and reasoning. 


THE INFLUENCE OF COAL-TAR ON 
CIVILIZATION 


By Epwin E. Stosson 


HAT were the most precious things in the 

\ \) ancient world? What would a king bring to 
a great king whose favour he sought? What 

would the great king offer to his god? When a daring 
trader had reached the Far East after untold hardships 
by land and sea for many months, what commodities 
would he pick out to purchase and take back, knowing 
that he must make his fortune out of what he could 
carry on acamel’s back, or perhaps his own, through the 
torrid desert, beset by robbers, and over the icy 
mountains? You know what he could buy to take back 
if you know your Bible, or even if you know your 
Arabian Nights. You could inventory that cargo from 
such fragments of ancient verse or prose as linger in 
your memory. You know that when his pack of rare 
and precious goods was opened it would be found to be 
filled largely with what are now called coal-tar com- 
pounds. Not much else, except gold and gems. ‘There 
would be dyes and drugs, perfumes, and preservatives; 
whatever amorous youth would choose to enhance the 
beauty of his lady love, and whatever pious youth 
would use to embalm the body of his father; whatever 

48 


COAL-TAR 49 


would colour the curtains of the palace of the king or of 
the temple of the deity; whatever would serve to scent 
the banquet hall or ascend to heaven as incense from 
the altar. 

Now these that were the gifts of kings, the prerogative 
of royalty, the acme of luxury, all these have, by the 
bounty of science, been put within the reach of all. To 
be born to the purple is no longer a distinction. It is 
the natural heritage of any American babe. /King 
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like a lady who 
has all the aniline dyes at her disposal. The.shop girl 
may rival the Queen of Sheba in her employment of 
perfume—and she often does. 

But notice this—that perfumes and similar luxuries 
are not used so lavishly now when they are cheap as in 
the days when they were rarities. “They are not abused 
by the many as they were by the privileged few. We 
may think that nowadays some people put too much 
scented unguent on their person, but we never see any 
one with so much of it as was used in the case of Aaron, 
where it soaked his head, ran down to the tip of his 
beard and went on to grease his garments to the skirt 
and doubtless formed a puddle on the floor. If we 
should see and smell anything like that to-day, there 
would indeed be reason for outcry against the growing 
extravagance of the age. 

All of the comforts and conveniences of our ordinary 
life were on their introduction denounced by moralists 
as extravagant and demoralizing luxuries. Juvenal de- 
clared that Rome was in decadence because the rich 
used ice and white bread at their banquets. But now- 


50 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


adays to live on white bread and iced water is not re- 
garded as wicked indulgence. Nobody objects to it ex- 
cept those who think that brown bread and tepid water 
are better for the health. 

This does not prove that Juvenal and such satirists 
were wrong. On the contrary they were doubtless 
right, for the aristocrat who ate white bread and drank 
cold drinks when nobody else in the city could afford 
them, did feel a selfish satisfaction at his superiority 
and so it was demoralizing to him. But when the roller 
mill and the refrigerating machine brought these table 
delicacies to the level of common life they became quite 
harmless. 

The way to make a luxury innocuous is to make 
enough of it to go around:~~When it becomes cheap it 
ceases to be extravagant, and when it becomes common 
it ceases to be exclusive, and therefore it 1s no longer a 
menace to morality. Isaiah was doubtless justified in 
denouncing the daughters of Zion for their ““changeable 
suits of apparel,’ but I do not think he would say the 
same now when a package of dye soap can be bought 
for ten cents. For the ladies who change the colour of 
their apparel by the use of such coal-tar products do not, 
I am sure, feel sinfully set up about it. 

The coal-tar products form a new factor in our civili- 
zation. Not long ago, chemists celebrated the fiftieth 
anniversary of the day when a London schoolboy, wash- 
ing up his glassware after an experiment that had failed, 
found that the black sticky stuff in his beaker kept 
colouring the wash water purplish. Like Columbus 
and Saul, young Perkin had failed to find what he was 


COAL-TAR oI 


looking for, but had hit upon something greater. He 
was after quinine, but he had accidentally entered the 
unknown field of aniline dyes and drugs, many of which 
are more valuable to the world than the knowledge of 
how to make quinine without the aid of Peruvian bark. 
He was working in a laboratory that he had fitted up 
for himself at home because the Royal College of 
Science was not open enough hours to satisfy him, and 
he was using impure chemicals. ‘This was fortunate, 
for if his aniline had been pure he would have missed 
mauve. 

The first coal-tar dye, mauve, was discovered in the 
Easter vacation of 1856. Note the date, I mean the 
time of year. It is significant. Not because it was 
Easter, although you may have a childhood association 
of aniline dyes with Easter eggs. But it was in vaca- 
tion. It was made by a boy who played hooky from 
vacation, by a boy who had rather work than eat, so he 
spent his noon hour fussing with chemical apparatus. 
There are such boys even now in spite of the fact that 
they are persecuted by their classmates as grinds and 
are not always encouraged by their teacher, I don’t 
know how William Henry was treated by his school- 
mates, but he was encouraged by his teacher in the 
most effective fashion by being set at a discouraging 
task, in fact an impossible task to him, one that has not 
yet been accomplished—the synthesis of artificial 
quinine. 

The English and the French at first entered with 
enthusiasm upon the preparation of new coal-tar com- 
pounds, but were ultimately distanced by the Germans, 


52 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


who made the research laboratory a part of the factory 
and by thus putting their industries under scientific 
guidance had, before the war, obtained practically a 
world monopoly of the manufacture of synthetic organic 
chemicals. 

The 1914 edition of Schultz and Julius Dyestuff 
Tables listed 925 coal-tar dyes as used in the trade, 
but the chemist knows of thousands of others that he 
might make if needed. We already have dyes for all 
kinds of material and for any desired colour and shade. 
Some are fast and some are fugitive. Some are glaring 
and some are dull. Some are cheap and some are dear. 
Some are poisonous and some are harmless. It is ab- 
surd to condemn or commend the coal-tar colours as a 
whole, because they differ in every possible respect. 

That is, the dyer of to-day has a thousand pigments 
on his palette not counting shades and combinations. 
Before the discovery of mauve in 1856—you will re- 
member that date if I repeat it often enough—there 
were barely a score of dyestuffs in general use, mostly 
barks and roots of uncertain composition. It is hard 
for us to realize what a different-looking world we are 
living in, thanks to coal-tar compounds, and still harder 
to express in words the difference in esthetic effect. 

Coal-tar has brought more colour into our dull lives, 
not only through our clothing but also through our 
food. Food and drink, appropriately tinted, become 
more attractive, and being more attractive become more 
appetizing, and being more appetizing become more di- 
gestible, and being more digestible become more nutri- 
tious, and being more nutritious become more strength- 


COAL-TAR 33 


ening. Each step in this Aristotelian sorites has, I be- 
lieve, been experimentally demonstrated, so it seems to 
lead logically to the conclusion that the increasing 
use of aniline dyes in food products has added to the 
energy of the nation. I do not put entire faith in 
Aristotle’s logic until it is confirmed by the calori- 
meter, so | will not press this argument, but content 
myself with the safe observation that the coal-tar 
colours add to popular pleasure, whether or not they 
increase the public efficiency ‘That they are at least 
harmless is assured by the United States Department 
of Agriculture, which analyzes every batch of dyes used 
in edible products to see that they are not in themselves 
poisonous and do not contain accidental arsenic. No 
new dye is added to the allowed list until it has been put 
through a long series of tests, first on animals, then on 
man, to see that it is not injurious, even in much. larger 
amounts than are to be used in edibles. 

The use of artificial colours in foodstuffs is increasing 
rapidly. About 500,000 pounds of dyes are used every 
year in the United States for colouring foods and drinks. 
This is some four times greater than the quantity used 
afew years ago. ‘The favourite colours in this field are 
the same as those which periodical publishers have as- 
certained to have the greatest selling value on the cover 
of a magazine, red and yellow. [leaveit to the psychol- 
ogist to explain this popular preference for the longer 
wavelengths of the spectrum. The red dyes go largely 
into frankfurters and the yellow into butter and rival 
spreads, while all the colours of the rainbow are in de- 
mand for cake and candy icings and ice cream, and for 


64 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


the wide variety of soft drinks that are gradually weaning 
the American people away from hard liquor. Four 
billion pints of bottled soda are consumed annually in 
the United States, not counting what is sold from foun- 
tains. 

Another indication of the popular trend toward a 
gayer taste is the use of chemical compounds with intent 
to increase the attractiveness of the naturally more at- 
tractive sex. ‘The people of the United States are now 
spending about one hundred million dollars a year on 
perfumes and cosmetics. We are importing four times 
as much of these, measured by cost, as we were before 
the war and we are exporting ten times as much. 

I will not attempt to apply here the syllogistic chain 
used above, for experimental evidence is almost alto- 
gether lacking. Since odours are known to have a 
profound influence upon the emotions, the effects of the 
wider use of perfumes and the introduction of new scents 
cannot be negligible, although they may be indetermin- 
able. 

In the manufacture of fine odours the chemist is rapid- 
ly catching up with the flowers; in fact has already sur- 
passed them in some lines. Let not the reader stick 
up his nose at synthetic perfumes. We could not get 
along without them. In fact we are altogether de- 
pendent upon them for certain popular forms of per- 
fumery, for many flowers do not give up their scent 
satisfactorily and so the perfumer has to imitate it as 
best he can. For instance, the perfumes sold under the 
names of arbutus, sweet peas, mayflower, cyclamen, 
magnolia, phlox, honeysuckle, lilac, and lily of the valley 


COAL-TAR 55 


are not produced from the flowers, but are put together 
by the perfumer from chemical compounds or other 
floral essences. | 

In the field of perfumes and flavours the benzene de- 
rivatives, natural or artificial, play a prominent part. 
This world would lose a large part of its delight if the 
‘‘aromatics’ should be deprived of the power of titillat- 
ing our two chemical senses, taste and smell. These six- 
membered carbon rings enter into all sorts of combina- 
tions and serve us in various ways. For instance, 
anthranilic acid in divers forms gives us the odour of 
jasmine and orange blossoms, the flavour of the grape, 
and the colour of indigo. 

Salicylic acid cures our corns and relieves our rheu- 
matism and in combination with the deadly “‘wood 
alcohol” (now rechristened “‘methanol”’ to keep people 
from drinking it) gives us the wintergreen flavour for 
which we Americans inherit a taste from our New 
England ancestors. Saccharin, a coal-tar product, 1s 
several hundred times sweeter than sugar. It is alto- 
gether lacking in nutritive value, but a dietary experi- 
ment on the largest conceivable scale, namely its daily 
use by many millions of Europeans for several years 
during the sugar shortage in the late war, should remove 
the popular impression acquired during the pure food 
campaign, that it is injurious to health. This has been 
recently confirmed by M. Bonjean of the Superior 
Council of French Public Hygiene who made a ser- 
ies of physiological experiments of long duration with 
men and dogs in all doses practically possible and 
found no derangement of health or digestion. 


56 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


The familiar phrase for anything particularly expen- 
sive or extravagant, “‘It costs like smoke,” implies 
doubtless an unconscious realization of the fact that 
oxidation is the reversal of the synthetic reaction, the un- 
doing of the constructive activity of animate nature. 
The plant builds. Man utilizes. Fire destroys. Now 
one of the most wasteful forms of smoke was that which 
poured uninterruptedly during the great part of the last 
century from the open tops of the beehive coke ovens. 
In fact one can yet see these prodigal flares on the Penn- 
sylvania mountains as he looks out of his Pullman win- 
dow in the night. This is not merely a waste of fossil 
fuel, which we already begin to realize will not last for 
ever, but there is also a loss of a variety of compounds 
that can be made very useful if properly worked up. 
If a ton of bituminous coal is heated in a closed retort 
instead of the open beehive, we may get besides the gas 
and the coke, a dozen pounds of ammonium sulfate and 
a dozen gallons of tar. The ammonium sulfate is valu- 
able as a fertilizer, since it will feed nitrogen to the 
crops, and the tar on redistillation will yield a dozen 
products out of which some 200,000 distinct organic com- 
pounds may be made, some of which are extremely useful 
to mankind. 

There is no use crying over lost coal-tar, but the time 
is coming when we must be more economical. I do not 
want to use language instigating violence, because that 
is against the law, so I will merely quote Admiral 
Dumas, Secretary of the British Royal Commission 
on Oil Fuel, who said not long ago: 

““Y would like to see a government official hanged on 


COAL-TAR 57 


every lamp-post where gas is burned, because benzol 
goes up with the flame.” He had in mind particularly 
the impending shortage of gasolene, for which benzol, or 
benzene as we call it, is a suitable substitute as motor 
fuel. 

Before the war the British were glad. to sell their sur- 
plus tar at low price to the Germans who made out of it 
all sorts of dyes and drugs which they sold back to the 
British at high prices. The Germans also found the 
stuff useful for the manufacture of high explosives which 
however, they were not so anxious to sell abroad but 
preferred to keep at home for purposes best known to 
themselves. 

We Americans, too, were neglectful of the explosive 
possibilities of the coal-tar products. Indeed, there 
was then a prevalent feeling that war was an anachron- 
ism and would gradually sink into innocuous desuetude. 
We Americans have a curious belief that anachronisms 
die out spontaneously if let alone, whereas history shows 
that they are very long-lived creatures and rarely die of 
old age but usually have to be killed off. In 1914 there 
were only enough by-product coke-ovens in the United 
States to turn out 700,000 pounds of toluene a month. 
Toluene is used in wartime for making trinitrotoluene, 
familiarly known as TNT, but there was not much de- 
mand for it then, so most of the coke makers let it burn. 
When America entered the war our Government per- 
suaded them, more or less imperatively, to put in by- 
product coke-ovens, and by 1918 they could turn out 
12,000,000 pounds of toluene a month. 

The Great War differed from all former wars in the 


58 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


use made of high explosives; that is, compounds that 
can be kept and carried with comparative safety but 
which explode with terrific violence on being set off by a 
percussion cap of the right sort. The Germans with 
the chemical factories and nitrate plants were better 
prepared with these new weapons of warfare and that is 
why they burst through the border with such alarming 
speed. ‘The steel and concrete cupolas of the Belgian 
and French fortresses were shattered to pieces by single 
shells from the 42 centimetre guns. ‘The British troops 
had to fall back rapidly before Von Kluck’s army and 
even then narrowly escaped destruction. Lord Kitch- 
ener and the British general staff were slow to realize 
that the old means of defence and offence were useless 
against the coal-tar munitions, but finally word was got 
to the British people that the army in France must 
have high explosives or perish. They got them in 
time to make a stand after the first German drive had 
spent its initial force and so coal-tar products ‘‘won the 
war.” | 

In considering coal-tar explosives we must not think 
that their usefulness is confined to settling the relative 
strength of nations in war. Explosives are simply com- 
pact packages of potential chemical energy put up ina 
form ready for quick release, and as such they are 
valuable in various ways. In 1921 the United States 
produced and used for industrial purposes 538,000,000 
pounds of explosives. This does not include exports, 
but includes explosives not made from coal-tar, such as 
gunpowder and nitroglycerin. 

Carbolic acid, which the chemist calls ‘‘phenol,” 


COAL-TAR 59 


comes directly from coal tar. If this is acted upon by 
nitric acid, picric acid is formed, which 1s a dye, a drug, 
and an explosive. Treat picric acid with chlorine and 
we get chlorpicrin, one of the poison gases first used in 
the late war. The mother substance of this group of 
aromatic compounds is benzene, a colourless liquid. 
Treated with nitric acid this becomes nitrobenzene, and 
this reduced by hydrogen gives aniline, from which the 
innumerable and variously coloured aniline dyes are 
made. Acting on aniline dye with acetic acid, the acid 
of vinegar, gives us acetanilid, a headache remedy, or, 
rather, relief. “Toluene, the next member of the series 
to benzene, can be converted by similar treatment into 
dyes and drugs, explosives and sedatives, perfumes and 
poison gas. The benzene family is remarkably versatile. 
What is made for one purpose often serves for another. 
During the war the women munition workers in England 
were found to be using trinitrotoluene for dyeing their 
hair an auburn shade, and had to be warned against 
the dangerous practice by an offcial of the Explosives 
Department. 

When we were children and played the “game of 
twenty questions” we always used to begin by asking 
“Ts it animal, mineral, or vegetable??? We thought by 
that to corner the unknown object in one of the three 
kingdoms of nature, for it did not occur to us that any 
material thing could belong to more than one or lie 
outside of all three. But there are no lines in nature. 
What seem to us such are but merely the boundaries of 
our ownignorance. ‘The synthetic products of chemical 
art, since they are built up from the primary elements 


60 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


themselves, do not properly belong to any one of the 
traditional three kingdoms for they may be made from 
material found in any of them and the product is the 
same whatever the source. So with the substances that 
we are considering. [hey are commonly called coal- 
tar products because that is the ordinary source of the 
raw material, for tar is a by-product of the gas and coke 
industry, formerly thrown away and even yet often 
wasted. But it is necessary to understand that there is 
nothing exclusive or peculiar about coal-tar. It does 
not contain the various valuable things that are made 
from it. ‘These are mostly composed of four elements, 
the commonest in the world: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 
and nitrogen. These four make up air and water, and 
out of air and water these compounds could be made, 
although it would be a difficult and expensive process. 

In the chemistry books they are known either as the 
‘aromatic compounds,” because a good many of them 
have an aromatic odour, or the “‘benzene series”’ from 
the light colourless o1] known as benzene which distils off 
when tar is heated, and which serves as the basic sub- 
stance of those compounds. ‘This benzene is composed 
oi molecules consisting of six carbon atoms hooked up 
intoaring. But the benzene ring and similar structures 
are commonly found in vegetable and animal sub- 
stances. 

The reason why I call your attention to this is that 
there is a prevalent impression that the coal-tar prod- 
ucts are some new invention of the chemists, perhaps 
instigated by the devil with whom chemists have always 
been accused of being too familiar. Many of the things 


‘6 


“ 


COAL-TAR 61 


that’ are now made from coal-tar were formerly ex- 
tracted from plants. 

Indigo, for instance, has been prepared from the most 
ancient time out of the juice of a plant grown in India. 
The preparation of the dye was a toilsome process. The 
natives cut the plant by hand, squatting on the ground, 
and then beat it up in vats with paddles, standing up to 
their waists in the blue liquid. In 1896 there were 
more than a million and a half acres devoted to its 
culture in that country. Shortly after that the Ger- 
mans invented a way of making artificial indigo— 
no, let us say more correctly, of making indigo artifi- 
cially—from coal-tar, and then the land and natives of 
India were released for better employment. Since the 
war America makes her own indigo and has enough 
surplus to export. In 1920 there was produced in the 
United States more than 18,000,000 pounds of indigo, 
which is more than twice what we imported before the 
war. 

Next to indigo the most popular of the old vegetable 
dyes was madder. ‘This has been used for more than 
two thousand years. It is the ground root of an Asian 
plant and is known as “Turkey Red.’ Extensive 
fields were given over to its culture in France and the 
Netherlands until 1869 when two German chemists, 
Graebe and Liebermann, discovered how to make the 
pure dyestuff, alizarin, from a waste product of coal- 
tar, anthracene. ‘The artificial alizarin is better and 
cheaper, and this early triumph of synthetic chemistry 
was, at the end of the first decade of its manufacture, 
saving the world $20,000,000 a year, and is now saving 


62 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


much more than that. As Professor W. A. Noyes 
recently put it: 

“It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that enough 
has been saved from this to pay for all the university 
laboratories in the world.” 

Let us consider another famous dye, the royal purple. 
You may recall what Browning says of it in the poem 
** Popularity.” 


Who has not heard how Tyrian shells 
Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes 
Whereof one drop worked miracles, 
And colored like Astarte’s eyes 
Raw silk the merchant sells? 


Now this same royal purple that used to be extracted 
drop by drop from the Mediterranean mollusc may be 
made by the ton from coal-tar. Why is it not? Be- 
cause it is not good enough to satisfy modern taste. 
Some of the new aniline dyes are superior to it. 

This idea that the coal-tar products are artificial and 
unnatural sometimes leads to amusing consequences. 
In the days when the newspapers were publishing scare 
stories about the poisonousness of benzoic acid, an 
over-zealous food inspector tried to confiscate a carful 
of cranberries because he found benzoic acid in them. 
But when he attempted to get at the person responsible 
for putting in the forbidden preservative so that He 
could be properly ‘punished, He was found to be too 
high up and powerful for the police to reach, being no 
less a personage than the Creator of Heaven and Earth 
and allthatinthemis. He puts benzoic acid into cran- 


COAL-TAR 63 


berries whenever He makes them, whatever may be the 
law of the land. 

A similar instance occurred recently. The leading 
manufacturer of grape juice was accused of adding an- 
other coal-tar preservative, namely anthranilic acid, to 
his bottled product. But this also turned out to be a 
case of “natural adulteration,” so to speak, for all 
grapes of this species contain anthranilic acid; in fact, 
that is what gives them their pleasant flavour. 

We could not rule the coal-tar products, these ben- 
zene compounds, out of our life if we wanted to, and 
we certainly do not want to, for they furnish a large part 
of the beauty and pleasure of the world, of the flavours 
of its fruits, the perfumes of its flowers, the colours of 
its plants. Yet you will now hear some foolish crafts- 
man say that we ought to do away with aniline dyes and 
go back to such good old vegetable colouring matters as 
indigo and madder. But we can beat nature at making 
these same things, as well as make others even more 
beautiful that nature cannot make. 

In the incessant warfare between man and microbe 
the human side received a powerful ally when coal-tar 
came to its aid, because then for the first time man 
could see his insidious foes. For thousands of years 
man had seen men and children, the strongest of the 
warriors and wisest of the elders, struck down by in- 
visibles enemies against whom he had no weapons, for 
he did not know what they were nor whence they came. 
No wonder he thought such deaths were due to the un- 
seen arrows of evil spirits. But by 1880 the bandage 
was lifted from the eyes of man, for about that time 


64 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


Robert Koch and others began to use aniline dyes to 
stain the microscopic disease germs and to catch their 
pictures on the photographic plate, developed by coal- 
tar chemicals. From that time on, as he said, dis- 
coveries fell into the lap of the investigator like ripe 
fruit. In 1882 he discovered the bacillus of tuberculosis 
and in the following year the bacillus of Asiatic cholera. 

The bacillus of typhoid fever was discovered in 1880 
and in 1896 a serum was prepared to prevent it. What 
this has meant for public health we are all vaguely 
aware, but a few figures may fix our ideas. In-our war 
with Spain where we had 107,973 men in encampments, 
20,738 of them were taken down with typhoid and 
1,580 of them died of it. But in 1912, when we had 
12,801 men under similar conditions stationed on the 
Mexican border, only two cases developed, while in the 
Great War there were only 227 deaths from fever in all 
the American armies during ‘two years. This microbe 
that had been the most formidable foe in previous wars 
has been finally conquered because we know where it 
lives and how it is carried and can even prepare the body 
in advance to resist it, if in spite of our precautions it 
gains entrace. 

It is not a matter of chance that certain dyes have 
been found valuable as drugs. ‘The same thing that 
makes them good dyes makes them good medicines; 
that is, their ability to attach themselves to some par- 
ticular kind of animal or vegetable substance. Many of 
our most dangerous diseases are, as we now know, due 
to minute vegetable or animal parasites, bacteria or 
protozoa, that flourish in the blood and at our expense. 


COAL-TAR 65 


But these are hard to see on a microscope slide where 
they are mixed up with all sorts of similar cells and 
tissues and may be quite invisible. It was fortunately 
found that the aniline dyes were useful in bringing out 
the various substances, for some would be stained with a 
particular colour while other things on the slide were 
unaffected. Those of you who have tried home dyeing 
will have found that in a piece of cloth composed of 
mixed cotton and wool, the dye is apt to attach itself 
to one kind of thread and leave the other untinted. 
One day Dr. Koch was being shown through the 
Breslau laboratories, and as he passed a table where a 


young student was busily engaged in staining micro- @ 


scope slides, he was told: “This is our little Ehrlich. 


He is a first-class stainer of tissues, but he will never_ 


TSS TNE ALOE RE a CED FO 


pass his examinations.” In fact, he never did, but his 
“staining of tissues” led to the new science of chemo- 
therapy which has given remedies for diseases hitherto 
incurable. He found first that fuchsine, a familiar red 
dye, would stain the tubercle bacilli so that they could 
be seen on a miscroscope slide. Later he found that these 
stains would act even in the living cell. He discovered 
that methylene blue, a common colouring matter, 
would seek out and destroy the parasite that causes the 
quartan type of malarial fever. With this as a clue he 
set about making molecules that would not only search 
out and attach themselves to the pernicious parasite, 
but carry along a dose of poison. For instance salvar- 
san, otherwise known as “606,” or as it has been re- 
christened in America since the war, arsphenamine, con- 
sists of two aniline rings with arsenic atoms attached. 


— 


66 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


The number shows the difficulty of this research, for it 
means that 605 failures preceded this success. 

The only way to get a realizing sense of the influence 
of the introduction of these coal-tar compounds is to 
pick out one of them and consider what pleasure or pain 
it has brought into the world, how much suffering it 
has caused or cured. 

For instance, did you ever have a headache that you 
relieved by aspirin or any of the other coal-tar re- 
medies? If so, multiply your headache by as many 
million times as you think other people have been so 
relieved and by as many years as you think people will 
continue to have headaches. 

Did you ever have a tooth pulled without, and an- 
other one with, the use of a local anesthetic? If so, 
you are in position to estimate in some degree the 
amount of human misery that has been eliminated by 
the invention of procaine (novocain) and similar pain- 
killers. | 

Did you ever see an epileptic fit? Then imagine 
that seizure and thousands like it prevented by the use 
of luminal. 

Did you ever lose a friend from diphtheria? Then 
you can realize what it meant to the world that the 
bacterium of the disease was made visible by staining 
with methylene blue, so that physicians could identify 
it in any suspected case and administer an anti-toxic 
serum. 

Statistics are meaningless to us unless we can trans- 
late them into concrete terms. 

Who can estimate the increase in industrial efficiency 


COAL-TAR 67 


and individual happiness caused by the abolition of 
malarial mosquitoes in a community whose inhabitants 
have shaken for generations with “fever and ague?”’ 

In many warm countries the energy of 80 per 
cent. of the population is being continually sapped 
by the hookworms which they carry about with them 
but which may be expelled by thymol, one of the ben- 
zene compounds. I quote a single minor incident in 
the anti-hookworm campaign from the 1921 Report of 
the Rockefeller Foundation: 


Three estates in Sumatra which, in spite of all recommendations, 
refused to adopt hookworm control measures, had in the course of 
two and one half years 4,657 admissions to the hospital. Three 
other estates with a laboring force of the same size which did adopt 
these measures had only 1,034 admissions—a difference of 78 per 
cent. One hospital admission represented on the average twenty- 
two days of treatment, which, reckoned at fifty cents a day, meant 
an aggregate loss of no less than 40,000 guilders during a period of 
only two and one half years. 


A striking illustration of the possible importance of a 
coal-tar compound comes to hand as I am writing this. 
The Germans are talking of trading off Bayer 205 for 
their lost African colonies. Bayer 205 is a secret 
synthetic medicine, presumably a coal-tar derivative 
like the previously known remedies of the sort, which is 
supposed to be a sure cure for the sleeping sickness. It 
is said to be fatal to the trypanosomes, the minute 
creatures with whip-like tail and spiral movement, that 
invade the blood of men and cattle in tropical Africa 
and bring them to a stupor that ends in death. These 
microbes are conveyed and injected by the tsetse fly, as 
fevers are by mosquitoes. The opening up of trade 


68 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


routes through Africa has carried the fly and the para- 
site into the heart of the dark continent and almost de- 
populated large areas. [he white man has found his 
dearly bought possessions valueless because neither 
man nor beast could live there except under constant 
danger of the “pestilence that flieth by night.” Vari- 
ous coal-tar products have been found effective against 
the trypanosomes. Ehrlich used trypan rose, an aniline 
dye, and Koch used atoxyl, an arsenic compound, but 
none proved a complete and permanent cure once the 
vicious little animals were in the blood. 

We may question the right of the Germans to with- 
hold knowledge of such a boon to humanity until they 
get their price for it, although the price demanded is 
hardly greater than the total profit that has been de- 
rived from other remedies and not by Germans alone. 
We may surmise, too, that the Germans could not keep 
the secret of Bayer 205 very long anyway, for if the drug 
comes into general use somebody will analyze it, what- 
ever the promises under which it may be supplied. Or 
the pharmacologists of other countries would in time 
work out the formula for themselves since they already 
can give a shrewd guess at what sort of a substance it is. 

But assuming that Bayer 205 is all that is claimed for 
it and will rid Africa of its plague and that Germans 
have a monopoly of it, then the British, French, and 
Belgians could well afford to trade off to Germany a 
large part of the immense territories they won by the 
war, for the value of the remainder would be immeasur- 
ably enhanced. It is not at all likely that such a bar- 
gain will be struck, but the mere fact that it has been 


COAL-TAR 69 


suggested shows that a single coal-tar compound might 
have a value that would make it a factor of importance 
in international relations. 

It is unnecessary to expand upon their war-time im- 
portance, but I must call attention to two revolutionary 
changes that chemical warfare has made in the balance 
of power. First, it has already increased the superiority 
of the civilized man over the savage and of the scientific 
and industrial nation over the ignorant and primitive. 
There is no longer any danger that civilized nations will 
be overwhelmed by barbarians, as has often happened 
in the past, unless indeed we hatch our own barbarians 
in our midst. In ancient times, when martial prowess 
meant merely the muscular ability to wield a sword or 
spear and a fondness for fighting, the barbarian was 
likely to be more than a match for the civilian. But 
with the introduction of chemical warfare by the 
use of gunpowder in the 14th century, the balance 
turned in favour of the scientist against the savage, 
and the odds have increased ever since. Second, 
the recent development of chemical warfare in the way 
of high explosives and toxic gases has given the defence 
an advantage against the offensive and has made num- 
bers less important than intelligence. 

I picked out coal-tar as a topic because it is such un- 
promising material; black, smelly, sticky stuff, neither 
liquid nor solid but variably between, depending on the 
temperature, hard to handle because it could be neither 
poured like oil nor picked up like coal, combustible but 
not convenient for fuel, poisonous to fish if run into the 
water and offensive to folks if left on the land. It was 


Bee. 


70 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


worse than a waste product: it was a nuisance. It 
clogged up the gas works in the old days and could 
hardly be given away. 

When the chemist took this disagreeable stuff in 
hand he extracted from it, or rather prepared out of it, 
useful and beautiful things innumerable. Out of the 
strong came forth sweetness. The most dainty per- 
fumes, the most brilliant colours, the most potent 
drugs, the most violent explosives, the means of de- 
stroying life and extending life, and making life more en- 
joyable. A good chemist, like a good cook, is one who 


can make best use of left-overs. 


Yet coal-tar is not peculiar in its ability to contribute 
to man’s needs. ‘There are dozens of other forms of 
waste that might be made as valuable lying around 
loose. As I look out of the window for lack of an il- 
lustration, I see the ground covered with autumn leaves 
and dried weeds standing thick by the roadside. I 
wonder how many million tons of such vegetable matter 
containing all sorts of carbon compounds go to waste in 
the woods and wilds of the world every year without 
serving any other purpose than to refresh the humus 
of the soil. And then there is sawdust, and peanut 
shucks, oathulls, corncobs, straw, and the refuse from 
sugar factories, oil mills, and wood-pulp works; any of 
these and their like might well be worked up into all 
sorts of desirable commodities. 

The production of coal-tar compounds is an import- 
ant industry, and I have not tried to conceal its im- 
portance in these pages. But it is not a big business. 
It is one of the minor chemical industries as measured 


COAL-TAR - 


by financial income or avoirdupois output. It does not 
compare in these respects with such chemical industries 
as steel-making, glass-making, sugar-making, or cement- 
making. The coal-tar dyes manufactured in the 
United States in 1921 were valued at $32,400,000, but 
the chewing gum manufactured was worth—or was 
sold for—much more ($51,240,000 in 1919). 

But 1921 was an off year all around. Let us rather 
consider the famous year of 1920 when the United States 
manufactured 88,000,000 pounds of dyes valued at 
$95,000,000. ‘This is nearly as much as we imported, 
chiefly from Germany, 1n 1914 when we did not have 
any dye industry to speak of. We exported American- 
made dyes in 1920 to the value of $30,000,000, which is 
a big advance over 1914 when we exported only $400,000 
worth, and considerably higher than 1921, when we ex- 
ported $6,270,000 worth. Still our home industry is 
not yet sufhcient to satisfy our needs for all kinds of 
dyes, so in I921 we imported about 4,000,000 pounds of 
dyes valued at $5,000,000, about nine tenths of which 
came from Germany and Switzerland. Besides dyes, 
the United States manufactured in 1920 coal-tar 
medicinals to the amount of 5,000,000 pounds and the 
value of $5,700,000, and perfumes and flavours to the 
amount of 100,000 pounds and the value of $300,000. 
Whether this infant industry will thrive or decline under 
the new tariff law remains to be seen and does not con- 
cern us here since we are considering only the influence 
of these products on the world at large. The figures 
and facts given are sufficient to show how rapidly a new 
industry, created out of a waste product, can assume in- 


72 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


ternational importance and affect in various ways the 
lives of all of us. 

The aesthetic and emotional effects of such new 
factors in our civilization are doubtless more important 
than the material but they are more apt to be under- 
estimated because they cannot be figured in pounds or 
dollars. What, for instance, is the psychological in- 
fluence of the varied tints that our chemists have re- 
cently introduced? On this point we should consult the 
sex that takes most delight in colour, or at least makes 
most use of it. So I quote without permission from a 
private letter I recently received from a professor of 
chemistry in one of the leading colleges for women: 


Our colours are so much more beautiful than those which we had 
formerly. I remember the first aniline dyes which were introduced 
when I was a little girl. ‘Crushed strawberry” and “raspberry” 
were fashionable. The colours improved greatly, but they have 
never since then been so beautiful as they are getting to be now. 
There is a whole range of colours developed by our chemists which 
are entirely new, all the shades of henna, of jade, Russian green, the 
rose colours, to mention only a few. They are much more suited 
to our climate, to our taste and to our fabrics than the German dyes 
which so often looked “dowdy.” If a colour is pleasing, our chemists 
can introduce more varieties in it, just as has happened with henna. 
At first there was only one shade, now there are many more, delicate 
ones suited to summer skies and deeper ones for winter. 

The psychological effect of colour is beginning to be understood 
very much better now than formerly. The colours which our 
chemists have introduced are so much more refining and stimulating 
than the old ones. A lovely colour gives an aesthetic pleasure, often- 
times surpassing that of music, and sometimes makes the possessor 
of it aspire to something higher and finer. It brings freedom with it. 


Coal-tar has also played a part in the development 
of our other aesthetic sense, the sense for sound. 


COAL-TAR 73 


Carbolic acid, or phenol, is most familiar to us as an 
antiseptic for it destroys those microscopic enemies of 
ours that are always hanging around ready to enter 
any breach in the wall of our bodily citadel. But there 
is another use of it, not less important but much less 
familiar: its use in making artificial resins. Phenol 
unites with formaldehyde, another well-known anti- 
septic, and by the union of the liquid and the gas there 
is produced a hard solid insoluble substance, looking 
like amber or jet. This is called by the various manu- 
facturers' “‘bakelite,” “‘redmanol,”’ and “‘condensite,”’ 
and is extensively used, together with hard rubber, for 
the insulating parts of electrical apparatus, therefore 
contributing to electric light and power and to tele- 
phone and radio. It also is a factor in the phonograph. 

Various kinds of tar, asphalts, and pitch are also em- 
ployed in the manufacture of phonograph records; each 
manufacturing house has its own secret recipe. In the 
Edison record a thin coating of condensite on both sides 
of the disk receives the imprint of the spiral groove that 
carries the music. No synthetic phenol was made in 
this country before the war, and when we entered the 
conflict there came a sudden demand for an immense 
amount of it for making picric acid to be used in shells. 
Of course munitions came before music and the phono- 
graph was robbed to make explosives. ‘The price of 
phenol jumped from nine cents a pound to $1.50. 
Edison with his accustomed energy set up a factory for 
making phenol artificially and had it running within a 
month. Others followed suit and before the war was 
over there was plenty. In 1918, 106,800,000 pounds 


74 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


of synthetic phenol was made in America. But it was, 
if you remember, some time before phonograph disks 
recovered their former reliability. We knew the world 
was out of tune because our records were. 

In one of the numerous notebooks, in which Thomas 
A. Edison has recorded the ideas that flash through his 
fertile brain, is sketched under date of July 18, 1877, 
a crude cylinder with a handle and a trumpet, and this 
note written beneath: 


Just tried an experiment with diaphragm having an embossing 
point and held against parafined paper moving rapidly. ‘The speak- 
ing vibrations are indented nicely and there’s no doubt that I shall 
be able to store up and reproduce automatically, at any future time, 
the human voice perfectly. 


This was a momentous day in the history of the 
human race, for it was the first time that inanimate 
nature had answered, although man had been talking 
for more than a hundred thousand years. But when 
Mr. Edison said “Hello, hello!” back came the friendly 
hail “‘Hello, hello!” from the paraffined paper. It was 
the first time that a man had heard his own voice, except 
as an echoed syllable. It was the beginning of an era 
of preserved speech. 

The invention naturally created a sensation and there 
was much speculation as to what would come of it. 
Edward Bellamy of “‘Looking Backward” was among 
the prophets and he, like most of them, saw in the 
phonograph the supplanter of print. It was commonly 
expected that our newspapers and books would be re- 
placed by talking machines and that we should use our 
ears instead of our eyes in getting the news and perusing 


COAL-TAR we 


novels. Not so much was said about the phonograph 
as a musical instrument. I asked Mr. Edison, when he 
showed me that page in his notebook, if he foresaw its 
musical possibilities at the beginning, and he said that 
he did not, that he thought of it as a dictating machine, 
but now, he said, “‘I am hoping to hear Beethoven’s 
Ninth Symphony with an orchestra of seventy-five 
pieces perfectly reproduced before I die.” 

The so-called “‘talking machine” has had little talk- 
ing to do except in office work. ‘There is little call for 
the canned speeches of our statesmen and little demand 
for recitations except certain comic monologues. ‘The 
phonograph newspaper and novel have yet to appear. 
We shall have to substitute some sort of continuous 
strip for the dinner plate to allow of sufficient length. 
The radio with aid of coal-tar compounds has now en- 
tered this field and has converted the continent into one 
vast auditorium. 

In the field of music the phonograph has gone be- 
yond the wildest anticipations of its early days. It 
is the mocking-bird of musical instruments. It can 
imitate all of them, some with such exactness as to defy 
detection, some inadequately and imperfectly but sufhi- 
ciently well to recall to our minds the original music as 
we may have heard it and so to give us a pleasure that 
is partly memory, as a monochrome sketch will recall 
a beautiful painting. It is only in trying to record a 
chorus or large orchestra that the diaphragm gets rat- 
tled and makes a failure. 

Whatever the defects and deficiencies of the phono- 
graph as it is, it has served as a test of taste on a nation- 


76 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


wide scale and a trainer of taste as well. It used 
to be said that only the few could appreciate the best 
music but we know that this is not true. For the great- 
est of composers are represented by some disks in the 
poorest collection. They may have been bought in 
the beginning for the looks of the thing and may at 
first be brought out only for high-brow visitors, but 
some of the family are likely in time to like them better 
than the flashy trashy tinkling tunes that first caught 
their fancy. ‘This is the first time that good music has 
had an even chance in competition with poor music for 
popular appreciation. To rural communities, where for- 
merly the only music to be heard was that of a painfully 
played cabinet organ or of a self-taught fiddler, the pho- 
nograph has‘ brought at least a hint of the possibilities 
of all instruments and of the characteristics of various 
compositions and of the peculiarities of varied players. 

With the phonograph has come into vogue its comple- 
ment, the motion picture, and soon the two are likely 
to be made one. As the telescope brings to us happen- 
ings distant in space, so the phonograph and the motion 
picture bring to us happenings distant in time. The 
motion picture film is produced with coal-tar developers 
so this too as well as all photography might be included 
among the beneficiaries of benzene. In short there is 
no end to the ramifications of the influence of coal-tar 
compounds on our daily life. 


GuIDE To FURTHER READING 


“Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century,” 


by Sir William A. Tilden. (Dutton.) Chapters XXI and XXII. 


COAL-TAR a 


“Creative Chemistry,” by Edwin E. Slosson. (Century.) 
Chapters IV and VII. 

“Application of Dyestuffs,” by J. Merritt Matthews, (Wiley.) 

“Dyes Classified by Intermediates,’ by R. Norris Shreve. 
(Chemical Catalogue Co.) 

“Dyes and Dyeing,” by C. W. Pellew. (McBride.) Nontech- 
nical. 

“Manufacture of Dyes,” by J. C. Cain. (Macmillan.) 

“Dyes and Their Application to Textile Fabrics,” by A. J. Hall. 
(Pitman.) 

“The Story of Drugs,” by H. C. Fuller. (Century.) 

“The Future Independence and Progress of American Medicine 
in the Age of Chemistry.”’ (American Chemical Society.) 

“Origin and History of All the Pharmacopoeial Vegetable Drugs, 
Chemicals, and Preparations,” by J. U. Lloyd. (American Drug 
Manufacturers’ Association.) 

Reports of the United States Department of Commerce and of the 
United States Tariff Commission. 


ELECTRONS AND HOW WE USE THEM 


By Joun MILLs 
Educational Director, Western Electric Company 


HAT is the electron? It is to-day’s ultimate 
element. What to-morrow’s may be no one 
cansay. Interms of it the scientist of to-day 
envisages all matter, all the stuff of which our universe 
is composed. The constant change and motion of 
matter, which appear as chemical or electrical or gravi- 
tational phenomena, are ascribed to another entity, 
called energy, which is the hidden motive power. A 
third entity is sometimes postulated to fill the broad 
spaces in which our tangible and ponderable matter 
forms mere specks. A vast ether is then assumed 
through which energy may be transmitted from one 
body to another, whether as light and heat from solar 
bodies or as so-called ether waves from a broadcasting 
radio station to the household receiving set. 

Matter, energy, and a universal medium are the three 
entities in terms of which our present-day science is 
finding its explanations and extending its applications 
to human welfare. Of these the ether is the most de- 
batable assumption. Perhaps energy is not trans- 
mitted in waves through a continuous ethereal medium 
but hurtles through empty space like a bullet. For this 
78 





ELECTRONS 79 


there is much evidence—too much in fact for exposition 
within the limits of a single chapter. 

Energy, the second unknown of modern science, is 
accepted by the physicist, not only because it is a 
necessary assumption in the eternal sequence of changes 
which occur within us and about us, but also because 
there is an unknown something which correlates exactly 
with all these changes and seems to be conserved 
throughout them. Whenever changes occur in the 
form, chemical composition, or location of bodies of mat- 
ter the magnitude of the change is always definitely to be 
predetermined upon the assumption that this mysteri- 
ous energy will be constant and unchanged in amount. 

Its existence is an inference from the motions in- 
volved in the change. Only in this kinetic form is it to 
be detected and measured; and then, of course, only by 
the motions of ponderable matter. Between such occa- 
sions it masks its potentialities and appears as harmless 
as the explosive shell, the high-tension electric wires, 
or the reservoir of still water in the hills above the hydro- 
electric plant. But when released, the magnitude of 
the changes which occur shows that it has not been 
altered by quiescence. 

In a science where the ether is a convenient postulate, 
and energy a formless unknown, the electron stands 
out in stark reality as a definite ponderable particle, 
the tiny material element of the universe. 

Its identification in 1897 by Professor J. J. Thomson 
followed close upon the discoveries of radium and 
X-rays to which it now furnishes the mechanism for a 
valid explanation. The quarter of a century since his 


80 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


definite experiments has been enriched by thousands of 
delicate researches and the verification of ingenious 
theories. 

In the first place there has been proved the existence 
of a counterpart to the electron, a complementary par- 
ticle, conveniently known to-day as the “proton.” In 
the original literature the proton is called a positive 
electron, the term deriving from the earlier and arbi- 
trary classification of electricity as positive or negative. 

Of protons and electrons all known kinds of matter 
are composed. More than that, these elementary 
particles are the positive and negative electricities which 
were earlier assumed to explain electrical phenomena. 
So now we say that matter is granular in structure and 
electrical in nature, although we might equally well say 
that electricity 1s granular and material. 

These positive and negative specks follow the well- 
known electrical laws: like particles repelling each other 
and unlike attracting. ‘Their actions (manifestations 
of energy), appear as if they were the result of two urges 
for both of which a common satisfaction is only rarely 
attained. One is toward the assembling in any region 
of equal numbers of protons and electrons, that is, a 
tendency toward an unelectrified condition. Protons 
are attracted toward regions where there are more 
electrons than protons, and vice versa. Bodies com- 
posed of more protons than electrons are called posi- 
tively charged; and similarly an excess of electrons is 
the state of a negatively charged body. The uncharged, 
or neutral, condition with equal numbers is the stable 
condition. 


ELECTRONS 81 


The other urge, instead of depending as does the first 
upon the mutual attraction of protons and electrons, 
depends upon the mutual repulsions which occur be- 
tween two or more protons or between two or more 
electrons. In any grouping of several protons and 
electrons there are some amenities in the way of proper 
separations between mutually repellent members. Cer- 
tain configurations, or arrangements of the particles in 
space, seem to be more stable than others and toward 
such configurations this second urge is effective. 

One of the most stable groups comprises four protons 
and four electrons, satisfying thereby the more funda- 
mental urge of equal numbers. All of these, except two 
electrons, are closely grouped into a tiny particle, known 
as an “alpha particle.” Why and how four protons 
and two electrons should group so closely no one as yet 
knows. (Perhaps, at such infinitely small and sub- 
atomic distances, it has been suggested, the laws of 
attraction and repulsion do not follow the same mathe- 
matical relationship as they do for the larger distances 
at which they were determined.) The two remaining 
electrons disport themselves at some distance and 
presumably on opposite sides of the alpha particle, which 
attracts them because it has an excess of protons. 

The entire group is known as an atom of helium, that 
inert gas which has been recommended for airships. 
In this grouping both urges find complete satisfaction. 
No greater satisfaction could be obtained by any ar- 
rangement; so there is no residual tendency to join with 
other protons and electrons to form a larger but more 
stable group. 


82 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


In the helium atom we have the characteristic struc- 
ture of all atomic systems. At the centre there is a 
nuclear particle composed of a close arrangement of 
protons and electrons but including more protons than 
electrons. In the region beyond there are electrons. 
The whole constitutes a miniature celestial system in 
which the nucleus is the central mass and the remaining 
electrons planetary satellites. 

Atomic structure is more completely illustrated by 
the familar nitrogen of which we daily breathe about 
four times as much as we do of oxygen. Its nucleus 
contains seven more protons than electrons; in fact 
fourteen protons and seven electrons. About this 
nucleus are seven planetary electrons. ‘Iwo of these 
apparently occupy positions on opposite sides like the 
satellites in the helium atom; and the remaining five, 
at a greater distance from the nucleus, are disposed as 
if on an imaginary sphere about the nuclear centre. 

How much of this well-ordered picture is speculation? 
Relatively little. Admitting that the evidence is not 
direct but circumstantial and that the positions of the 
planetary electrons are not exactly known, the state- 
ment stands as made. ‘The evidence, however, may . 
well wait the presentation of further facts and some 
ideas as to the magnitudes involved. 

Imagine this atom of nitrogen which consists of seven 
specks in space enclosing imperfectly a central speck, 
for the atom is mostly hole—imagine it magnified about 
one hundred thousand times. “The specks would then 
be about as large as the unmagnified atom. ‘Two such 
atoms of nitrogen, associated much like partners in 


‘Rare 
Earths 






Flectro Negative Electro Positive, 


Inert 


From “Within the Atom,” by John Mills. Published by D. Van Nostrand Company 


Atomic systems at the periodic table. Place numbers correspond to 
atomic numbers. Systems similarly situated, as indicated by radial 
lines, have similar chemical properties 


83 





84. SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


polite dancing, form a molecule of nitrogen. Of such mol- 
ecules you inhale with each breath a few score billion, 
to say nothing about one fourth as many oxygen mole- 
cules each formed of two atoms. In the air around 
you all these molecules are moving at about one thou- 
sand miles an hour, in a haphazard way, for on the aver- 
age each can travel less than one thousandth of an inch 
before it must dodge another. That means a change 
of front about fifty million times a second, and estab- 
lishes a world’s record in expediency. 

Now imagine a cube of this air about three eighths of 
an inch on a side, acubic centimeter. Let the cube and 
its contents grow until its edge would reach from New 
York to Cleveland. Then about every foot along the 
way there would be a molecule; but you could not ex- 
pect to see one because it would be only a few tiny 
specks, each speck about one hundred thousandth of an 
inch. 

Nitrogen has an excess of seven protons in each 
atomic nucleus. Helium has two. So far as concerns 
an excess of protons in the nucleus there are just ninety- 
two possible conditions, extending from a nucleus of one 
proton and no electrons to the condition of ninety-two 
more protons in the nucleus. Whether or not there 
ever were any nuclei with an excess of more than ninety- 
two no one knows. If there were in the early geologic 
ages, they have now disappeared, for nuclei with more 
than eighty-two excess protons spontaneously disinte- 
grate. This is the secret of the radioactive elements of 
which radium is the widest known, but uranium and 
thorium are the unrelated parents. 


ELECTRONS 8s 


Uranium, a chemical element of which the atomic 
nucleus has an excess of ninety-two protons, has a most 
unstable internal situation. Every little while some 
atom of uranium-will yield to the strain and expel from 
its nucleus a whole group of protons and electrons, 


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closely associated and forming the so-called alpha par- 
ticle. When it has done so the nucleus contains four 
less protons and two less electrons, making a net excess 
of ninety. During the process the number of planetary 
electrons is reduced from ninety-two to ninety, to cor- 


86 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


respond to the reduced attraction of the nucleus. The 
result is the formation of an atom of an entirely different 
chemical element with different chemical properties. 

This process has continued for ages, gradually de- 
creasing the supply of uranium. In its place are its 
disintegration products, uranium Xi, so-called, and 
helium because the emitted alpha particle soon finds 
two electrons to act as its planets and with them settles 
down to the uncompanionable existence of a helium 
atom. 

The expulsion of an alpha particle from a uranium 
atom fails, however, to cure its internal troubles. “wo 
electrons are therefore successively expelled from the 
nucleus of the newly formed uranium X,. The excess 
of protons in the nucleus is increased from ninety to 
ninety-one and then to ninety-two. The expelled 
electrons shoot into space with enormous velocity, but 
their independent careers are not our present concern. 

With their leaving, the nucleus returns to a condition 
of ninety-two excess protons. ‘Thereafter it is a spend- 
thrift, losing one alpha particle after another until it 
finally becomes identical with the nucleus of the lead 
atom, which has an excess of eighty-two. During its 
downward progress it serves fora time as the nucleus 
of the well-advertised radium atom. 

The radioactive elements are responsible for much 
of our present-day knowledge of electronic physics. 
They gave away the inner secrets of a large group of 
atoms to such ingenious and persistent investigators as 
Professors Rutherford and Soddy. It was the former, 
for example, who proved that the alpha particle is really 


ELECTRONS 87 


the kernel of the helium atom. He used a glass tube 
with a deep dimple in one side. First he tested the 
atmosphere within the tube for the presence of helium 
and found none. ‘Then in the dimple he placed a radio- 
active substance. Again he tested; and helium was 
then present. The enormous velocities of the alpha 
particles had carried them through the glass wall into 
the enclosed space, where they showed in the spectro- 
scope the lines which are characteristic of helium. 

More recently Professor Rutherford has let these 
alpha particles shoot through nitrogen gas. Imagine, 
if you care to, some enormously solid comet plunging 
into our solar system so rapidly as not to perturb our 
planet until the fatal moment when it collides with the 
sun. The violent impacts of alpha particles and nuclei 
of nitrogen were relatively infrequent since both are 
very tiny; but when they occurred the nitrogen atom 
was disrupted and some of the protons knocked out of 
its nucleus. 

There is dove-tailing evidence enough on all these 
matters to require several graduate courses in physics 
for its exposition, so the reader whose time is limited 
must accept it on faith. He might justly ask, however, 
how these protons were recognized? By the distance 
they were knocked! And the reason is this: Alpha par- 
ticles rushing from their former nuclear homes will 
penetrate a fairly definite distance in air before they are 
so slowed down that they will not produce little scin- 
tillations when they strike a properly prepared screen. 
If instead of air they rush through an atmosphere of 
hydrogen gas the effect is the same except that occa- 


88 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


sional scintillations may be observed at a much greater 
distance from the radioactive material. Now, hydro- 
gen has long been known to be an atom with a single 
proton for a nucleus and, of course, one planetary elec- 
tron. ‘These scintillations are due to these protons 
which, being lighter than the alpha particles, are thrown 
farther by the collision. When pure nitrogen is used 
there are occasional scintillations at that greater dis- 
tance which corresponds to a single proton being pro- 
jected forward by the collision. 

In the radioactive atoms the nucleus is most expres- 
sive but in all atoms it is the real determining influence. 
Upon it depends the number of planetary electrons, 
for their number is normally equal to the excess of pro- 
tons in the nucleus. Upon this number depends the 
configuration and that determines the chemical behav- 
iour of the atom. In final analysis the nuclear content 
makes the atom what it is. For that reason it is con- 
venient to classify on a purely numerical basis by the 
“atomic number”’ which states the excess of protons in 
the nucleus. 

For purposes of visualizing the chemical behaviour 
of atoms it is simplest to deal with those of atomic 
numbers 11 and 17 which are sodium and chlorine, 
respectively. Now it happens that the atom of atomic 
number 10 1s that of neon, an inert gas, much like helium 
except heavier, which is completely satisfied. The 
atomic number 18 denotes another satished structure, 
that of argon. Sodium and chlorine, however, were 
created without the complete satisfaction of both the 
urges which were mentioned earlier. Sodium has one 


ELECTRONS 89 


planetary electron too many for a really satisfactory 
configuration such as is represented by the planetary 
electrons in the neon atom. Chlorine on the other hand 
lacks one electron of the eighteen which would assume 
the stable arrangement of the argon atom. 

A sodium atom is like a human being wrought upon 
by two conflicting emotions. If it should lose a planet- 
ary electron its remaining satellites would have a satis- 
fied configuration, but the urge for an equal number of 
protons and electrons would then be effective and the 
atom would merely have changed the kind of its dis- 
content. On the other hand, the chlorine atom would 
be better off with an additional electron in its planetary 
spheres, if it were not that, for it also, the urge of equal- 
ity and electrical neutrality would then be dominant. 
One has an electron to lose: the other, one to gain. They 
meet apparently on the same plane of mutual profit 
as do buyer and seller in the ideal case of business trans- 
actions. An electron is transferred. But neither 
buyer nor seller dares balance his books thereafter. 
The only solution is to remain together so that for pur- 
poses of accountancy the transaction may be considered 
incomplete and yet both may have the satisfaction 
which is the profit. This seems to be the basis of the 
existence in combination of a sodium and a chlorine 
atom as a molecule of sodium chloride, the common salt 
of the table. In fact, in a crystal of salt the various 
atoms are arranged in orderly rows in such a manner as 
to make the accountancy surprisingly satisfactory to 
each atom. Above and below, in front and behind, to 
right and left of each sodium atom there is one of 


90 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


chlorine; and the converse 1s true of each chlorine atom. 

In the confusion, however, which occurs when salt is 
dissolved in water the necessity of balancing accounts is 
momentarily forgotten. ‘The chlorine nucleus moves 
out into free space between the water molecules, taking 
with it as an extra satellite an electron from the sodium. 
The sodium nucleus starts off on its wanderings with 
one too few electrons. From that time on each is an 
“ion,” an electrically charged particle, seeking a means 
of balancing its electronic accounts. In its wanderings 
it may meet with another and oppositely charged ion 
but the association and consequent satisfaction are only 
transient because the fluid milieu in which they find 
themselves encourages incompatibility. (Of course, if 
there is too little water crystallization occurs.) 

If molecules of some other substance, which also dis- 
sociates into ions, have been dissolved in the same 
water these ions may afford satisfaction to the ions 
formed from the salt. A positive ion, that is one which 
has lost an electron, will always welcome a meeting with 
a negative ion for the latter has too many electrons. 

Combinations into molecules occur between atomic 
systems, that is atoms or ions, either under the urge of 
attaining greater satisfaction of configuration for the 
planetary electrons or under the urge of becoming elec- 
trically neutral. (In the non-chemical phenomena of 
electricity it is the second urge which is responsible.) 
The unsatisfactions which lead to activities may involve 
more than one electron for each atom, instead of just 
one as in the simple case of sodium and chlorine. Com- 
plicated molecular unions may, therefore, be formed 


ELECTRONS gr 


comprised of many atoms, which as individuals may 
have had urges of different degrees of intensity. 

The chlorine atom which serves for visualizing chem- 
ical activity will also illustrate one fact which remains 
to be expressed before the picture is complete. Chlor- 
ine is a substance well known to the chemist. In our 
modern terms it is the element of atomic number 17, 
that is, it contains in its nucleus seventeen more protons 
than electrons. Its atomic number states a difference; 
but what about the actual content of the nucleus? 

In the first place we know the masses of the proton 
and electron. ‘The proton is about eighteen hundred 
and fifty times greater in mass than the electron. It is, 
therefore, responsibile for the weight of discrete atoms 
and of their aggregations in such masses as we weigh on 
chemists’ balances or coal-scales. The weight of a 
helium atom which contains four protons in its nucleus 
should then be practically four times that of the hydro- 
gen atom which has a single proton for its nucleus. 
Oxygen, which is known to contain sixteen protons, is 
approximately sixteen times as heavy as the hydrogen 
atom. 

The masses of various atoms have been found by an 
electrical method by Professor J. J. Thomson and more 
recently by Dr. F. W. Aston. The method involved 
ionizing the atoms, that is removing from them one or 
more electrons. Due to the resulting electrified condi- 
tion the atom will respond to electrical attractions and 
repulsions. The amount of its motion may then be 
used as a measure of its mass just as you might measure 
masses by observing what motions you could give to 


gz SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


them with a definite muscular force. As to knocking 
electrons off from atoms, and thus ionizing, there are 
many ways but they are not our present concern. 

The important point is that because of the electrical 
nature of the tiny particles which compose atoms it 
becomes possible not only to determine the masses of 
the atoms but also to separate atoms by weight. 

The chemist has always separated atoms on the cri- 
terion of chemical behaviour, that is, unconsciously un- 
til recently, on the basis of atomic number. For atoms 
so separated there have long been available very accurate 
determinations of the relative weights of the atoms of 
different chemical elements. The results of the elec- 
tronic physicist agree with these in those cases where 
the chemist had found for the atomic weight a whole 
number, when compared to the weight of the oxygen 
atom assumed as sixteen. The weights should be re- 
lated as integers since the nucleus should contain whole 
numbers of protons. 

The chemical method determined the average atomic 
weight of a large number of atoms of a chemically pure 
element. The physical method could be applied to a 
mixture of elements and would separate the atoms 
according to their weight. The chemical method 
applied to chlorine obtained an atomic weight of 35.45 
on a scale where the oxygen atom was 16.00. The 
physical method applied to chlorine indicated a mixture 
of two distinct types of atoms, one with a weight of 
35 and the other with a weight of 37. ‘There were ap- 
parently in any sample of chemically pure chlorine 
about three times as many atoms with weights of 35 


ELECTRONS 93 


as there were with weights of 37. On the average such 
a mixture would then have the weight indicated by the 
chemical method. 

Two kinds of atoms, differing in the total number of 
protons, were thus found to possess the characteristic 
behaviour of chlorine. They are called “isotopes” of 
each other because they occupy in the chemical tables 
the same position. The term was introduced by Pro- 
fessor Soddy who has met a similar phenomenon in his 
study of the chemistry of the radioactive elements. 
The case of uranium which was cited earlier will illus- 
trate it. Uranium loses from its nucleus successively 
an alpha particle and two electrons. ‘hereby it has 
reduced its nuclear content by four protons and four 
electrons. The atomic number of the new element, 
uranium II, is the same as uranium; the chemical 
behaviour is the same although, of course, the radio- 
activity is different; but the atomic weight is reduced 
by four units. The new element is an isotope of the 
old, chemically identical, but with a lower atomic 
weight. 

Such is a brief outline of the present ideas as to the 
matter of which our universe is composed. It is gran- 
ular in structure and electrical in nature, being com- 
posed of definite specks. Upon the number and 
arrangement of these specks, protons and electrons, 
depend all the physical and chemical characteristics of 
matter. 

Instead of classifying matter inexactly by the average 
behaviour of a number of atoms it is now possible to 
extend a rigorous and numerical classification to individ- 


94 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


ual atoms. ‘The key to the atom is its nuclear composi- 
tion. Its weight depends upon the number of protons 
in its nucleus. Its normal possibilities of combination 
into molecular form, that is, its chemical properties, 
depend upon the excess of protons in the nucleus. That 














From “Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son,”’ by John 
Mills. Published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. 


The Thermionic Vacuum Tube. Electrons emitted by a heated fila- 
ment, F, are drawn across a highly evacuated space to a plate, P. The 
stream is very sensitive to changes in the electrical potential of the 
grid, G. The device is widely used in the Bell System as an amplifier of 
telephone currents 


determines what is its normal complement of planetary 
electrons and their configuration. 

In terms of excess protons in the nucleus, that is, the 
so-called atomic number, there are ninety-two classes, 
of which eighty-seven are known chemical elements. 
In each class, however, there may be required a further 
subdivision on the basis of total number of protons in 
the nucleus. In addition, although the point has not 
previously been developed, there may be a difference 
in nuclear history which predisposes a nucleus to one 


ELECTRONS 95 


course of degradation rather than another. This is 
true of certain of the radioactive elements, where atoms 
of the same atomic weight as well as of the same atomic 
number may follow different sequences of radioactive 
changes. 

Whenever the number of planetary electrons about 
a nucleus does not correspond to the atomic number, 
then the atomic system is electrically charged, that is, 
“ionized.” Its further activities are due to that charge 
and the atom is under the urge of restoring a state of 
electrical equilibrium. Of such activities there are too 
many for present mention. ‘They accompany any de- 
rangement of the planetary electrons and to them are 
due many of the phenomena of light and X-rays. 

-A current of electricity exists whenever there is a 
stream of electrons from one point to another. In con- 
duction through gases the gas must be ionized before it 
becomes conducting. Its molecules must be split apart 
in some manner which will result in the formation of 
ions, that is, atomic or molecular systems which have 
more or less than the normal number of electrons. Such 
ionization may be accomplished in a number of ways, 
by the action of ultra-violet light, by exposure of the 
gas to X-rays, by impacts with swiftly moving electrons 
or alpha particles from radioactive substances, or by 
collision with swiftly moving free electrons or ions how- 
ever obtained. Under these conditions some of the 
gaseous molecules lose by impact planetary electrons 
and thus become positive ions. The freed electrons 
immediately take up their way toward the positive elec- 
trode and the positive ions take the opposite way 


96 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


toward the negative electrode. Both may produce 
further ions from the normal molecules of gas with 
which they collide if the impacts are sufficiently violent. 

Such, in general, is the phenomenon of conduction 
through gases. In solid bodies, like wires, conduction 
occurs by the motion of free electrons which wander this 
way and that through the intermolecular or interatomic 
spaces. [he metals, the best conductors, are electro- 
positive, that is, their atoms are systems with incon- 
venient electrons in excess of the simplest configura- 
tional requirement but not in excess of the number of 
protons in the atoms. It 1s these loosely held electrons, 
most probably, which serve to conduct electricity 
through solid conductors. Their haphazard wander- 
ings are superseded by a definite drift when the ter- 
minals of the solid are connected to a battery. 

This phenomenon of electron streams in wires con- 
ducting electricity is made to furnish the electrons 
which form the stream through the vacuum of an 
audion. The audion consists of an evacuated vessel 
with a filament through which a current of electricity 
may be passed. ‘There is also a metal plate and be- 
tween the plate and the filament a fine wire-grid. 

A strong current of electricity through the filament is 
manifested by its rise in temperature and its lumines- 
cence. Both the heat and the light are due to the dis- 
turbances created among the atoms of the wire by the 
stream of electrons which constitutes the current. The 
individual electrons of the stream, which is being forced 
through the filament by an external battery, must dodge 
or jostle their way past the more fixed atomic systems 


ELECTRONS 97 


and the stay-at-home electrons. They move with 
considerable velocities and from time to time one is 
diverted from the straight path of the conductor and 
flies beyond the restricting influence of its protons to 
the free space surrounding the filament. The number 
that thus escape is very large, increasingly so at high 
temperatures of the filament. 

Another battery is connected to the audion in such a 
manner as to make the plate positive with respect to 
the filament. ‘The free electrons are then drawn across 
the vacuum from filament to plate. On the way, how- 
ever, they pass through the meshes of the grid. The 
latter is strategically placed nearer the filament than 
the plate. Feeble electrical changes in the condition 
of the grid, therefore, produce pronounced changes in 
the stream of electrons which flows from filament to 
plate. Changes produced in this manner will be evi- 
dent in the external portion of the electrical circuit 
which is formed by the second battery, the filament, the 
plate, and the intervening vacuum. ‘The small inertia 
of these individual electrons and the delicacy with 
which the strategically placed grid controls their actions 
have resulted in the marvellous application of the audion 
to the electrical communication of speech by wire and 
by radio. 


GuIDE To FURTHER READING 


“Matter and Energy,” by Frederick Soddy. (Henry Holt.) 1912. 

“Science and Life,’ by Frederick Soddy. (John Murray.) 1920. 

“Within the Atom,’ by John Mills. (D. Van Nostrand and 
o,) > 1922. 


98 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


“Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son,” by John Mills. (Har- 
court, Brace & Co.) 1922. 

“Molecular Physics,” by James A. Crowther. (P. Blakiston’s 
Son & Co., Phila.) 1919. 

“Chemistry and Its Borderland,” by Alfred W. Stewart. (Long- 
mans Green & Co.) 1914. 

“The Electron,’ by Robert A. Millikan. (Univ. of Chicago 
Press.) 1917. 

“Electrons, Electric Waves and Wireless Telephony,” by J. A. 
Fleming. (Wireless Press.) 1922. 

“The Radio Pathfinder,” by Richard Ranger. (Doubleday, Page 
& Co.) 1922. 


AN INVESTIGATION ON EPIDEMIC 
INFLUENZA 


By Peter K. Otirsxy, M.D. anp 


FREDERICK L. Gates, M.D. 
The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research 


PIDEMICS of influenza have occurred at intervals 

for centuries, and may be recognized from con- 

temporary descriptions though they were known 
under different names in different places and different 
times. he disease has had a wide or more restricted 
distribution according to various circumstances of the 
time, especially the rapidity and extent of the move- 
ments of men. ‘Thus in earlier centuries human trans- 
port carried the pestilence slowly and over limited 
areas; in modern times, in a world knit closely together 
with frequent and rapid means of migration, the disease 
passes quickly from country to country and from con- 
tinent to continent. During the World War it quickly 
exacted a death toll from the warring countries surpass- 
ing their losses under arms. 

The place or places of origin of the epidemics are still 
under investigation, and it remains for future study to 
determine whether the spread takes place from a single 
source or from many. History traces the outbreaks 
of many epidemics to regions of eastern Russia and 
Turkestan;. but indications are not wanting that in- 

99 


too SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


fluenza lurked in many centers preceding the pandemic 
of 1918. Which ever of these divergent places of origin 
proves to be the true one, certain essential conditions 
(as yet undiscovered) must be regarded as combining 
to convert smouldering inactivity into epidemic spread. 

Tue Epipemic oF 1918.—The emergency created by 
the epidemic outburst of 1918, which was of unparalleled 
severity, coincided with the exigencies of the Great War 
so that the full weight and force of modern methods 
of clinical and bacteriological study could not quickly 
be brought to bear upon the disease. In many instances 
investigators were further handicapped through failure 
to distinguish influenza as a primary infection from the 
frequent pneumonias of common bacterial origin which 
were secondary to it; or were prejudiced in their views 
by the general acceptance of Pfeiffer’s bacillus as the 
bacterial cause of influenza. ‘This bacillus had been 
discovered by Richard Pfeiffer during the epidemic of 
1889. 

Early in the course of the epidemic, however, discor- 
dant findings cast doubt on the part played by Pfeiffer’s 
bacillus as the cause of the disease and in many labor- 
atories the search was started de novo for some hitherto 
unknown microbe whose distribution and character 
would more nearly fit the requirements of the case. 
The results of such an investigation at the Rockefeller 
Institute for Medical Research are described in this 
chapter. 

DEFINITION OF Epipemic INFLUENzA.—Epidemic in- 
fluenza free from complications is usually a mild affec- 
tion. On the fringes of an epidemic it is not always 


EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA Io! 


easy to distinguish it from other indefinite ailments of 
the upper respiratory tract. In the midst of an epi- 
demic, however, when many similar cases may be seen, 
its manifestations are more obvious and uniform. The 
attack is usually sudden with a chill, or chilly sensations, 
and fever. Headache, frontal or general, develops, 
with pains in the back, joints, and extremities. In the 
severer cases the prostration that accompanies these 
symptoms forces the patient to bed. The eyes become 
inflamed and painfully sensitive to light. The face is 
flushed; the throat swollen and raw, a thin irritating 
secretion flows from the nose, and the progress of the 
infection is denoted by hoarseness and a dry and dis- 
tressing bronchial cough. Examination of the chest, 
however, reveals no certain signs of lung involvement. 
Other organs are not usually obviously affected. Pulse 
and respiration are only slightly accelerated. The 
temperature remains fairly constant, between I0I.5 
and 103° F. for two to four days and, then after a pro- 
fuse perspiration, it falls rapidly to normal (about 
98.5° F.) with the beginning of convalescence. 

The duration of uncomplicated influenza is usually 
one to three days; in the severer cases four to six days. 
When symptoms persist beyond this period a secondary 
pneumonia or scme other sequel is to be suspected. 

Peculiar features of the disease are an early drop in 
the circulating white blood cells, a lowering of the resis- 
tance of the lungs to secondary infection by common 
bacteria, resulting in a high incidence of severe and 
fatal secondary pneumonias, and the persistence of a 
profound physical and mental depression during con- 


102 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


valescence. Characteristic of an epidemic is the rapid 
spread, coupled with a high incidence of infection, so 
that more than half a population may be attacked in 
the first wave, and the recurrence of successive waves 
of diminishing extent and severity until, in the course 
of three or four years, the epidemic dies out. 
EXPERIMENTAL INOCULATIONS.—In September, 1918, 
when it was decided to undertake a search for the in- 
fectious agent of epidemic influenza in the laboratories 
of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 
methods of transmitting the infection to animals were 
first considered, because an experimental infection in 
animals offers facilities for study not obtainable in 
human cases. For example, the transmission of a 
transient disease such as influenza through animals 
insures its indefinite propagation and affords material 
for study after human sources fail. An infection in 
laboratory animals can be interrupted at any time for 
necessary examinations of its progress and offers many 
avenues of approach which are closed to the investigator 
if he must depend wholly upon human cases for study. 
Uncomplicated influenza, however, is a relatively 
mild disease in man and some of its prominent manifes- 
tations such as chills, headache, sore throat, and de- 
pression cannot be observed in animals. It was ex- 
pected that the experimental disease, if successfully 
established in animals, would be mild as well, and 
might be missed unless some definite, measurable cri- 
teria could be employed to indicate the development of 
abnormal conditions similar to those observed in human 
cases. It was thought that among the characteristic 


EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA 103 


signs of the human infection, the typical changes in the 
blood might be used as an indication of successful trans- 
mission and it appeared probable that some local injury 
might be found in the lungs of the animals which would 
account for the characteristic defect in the resistance of 
the lungs following human influenza. 

Influenza is transmitted from person to person by the 
secretions of the respiratory tract, so the first experi- 
ments were undertaken with washings from the noses 
and throats of human patients in the early hours of the 
disease. These washings of course contained many 
varieties of bacteria, but it was expected that in favour- 
able instances the ordinary bacteria of the nose and 
throat would be suppressed through the natural resis- 
tance of the animal and that the specific effects of an 
extraordinary microbe might thereby be revealed. 

In a short series of experiments monkeys were found 
to be unsuitable for use in the study of influenza both 
because of their scarcity and because of the frequent 
presence of pulmonary tuberculosis in the available 
monkeys. ‘These preliminary experiments, however, 
gave a clue to a method of injecting the nasal washings 
which promised definite results. Injections of the 
washings into the nose and throat, the eyes, the blood, 
and under the skin produced no distinctive effects. 
But when the injections were made into the trachea, 
so that the material ran down into the lungs, the mon- 
keys showed a decrease in the white cells of the blood, 
such as is characteristic of human influenza. ‘This 
suggestive sign could not be correlated with local dam- 
age to the lungs, however, because of the frequency 


104 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


of diseased conditions due to other causes. The rabbit 
was then chosen for further experiments. 

The results of the first injections of nasal washings 
from human influenza patients into the lungs of rabbits 
showed that something in the washings was producing 
definite and characteristic effects. On the first or 
second day after injection the rabbits appeared ill, with 
ruffled fur, inflamed eyes and usually a degree or two of 
fever. The constant feature of their illness was a 
sudden drop in certain of the white cells of the blood 
which fell to half or a quarter of their normal number. 
These effects were transitory, and after two or three 
days the animals recovered. If the animals were killed 
for examination at the height of the attack, their lungs 
showed evidences of a definite type of injury and dis- 
organization unlike that found in ordinary pneumonia 
but similar in many respects to the influenzal damage 
found in persons dying early in the disease. Usually 
no ordinary bacteria could be recovered from the in- 
jured rabbits’ lungs and it appeared that the effects pro- 
duced by the human nasal washings were independent 
of the presence of commonly recognized microbes. 

By injecting into the lungs a suspension of ground 
lung tissue from a previously affected rabbit the typical 
effects just described could be induced successively in 
a series of animals. In one instance fifteen successive 
transmissions were obtained before the experiment was 
discontinued. ‘The persistence of these characteristic 
results, in spite of the repeated dilution of the original 
material between transmissions, indicated the presence 
of a self-perpetuating agent; a living organism or virus. 


EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA 105 


The next step was to define the living agent more 
exactly and to attempt its cultivation in the laboratory. 
It was soon found to be so minute that it readily passed 
through earthenware filters impervious to ordinary 
bacteria. In this way it could be separated from other 
microbes in the human nasal washings or in affected 
rabbits’ lungs. Filtered nasal washings from influenza 
patients and filtered lung suspensions produced the 
typical train of effects in rabbits and thus proved that 
ordinary bacteria were not involved in the process. ‘The 
specific microbe, which as yet had not been seen but 
whose presence was clearly indicated by the animal 
experiments, was a “‘filter-passer.”” Now although very 
few filter-passing microbes have been identified, the 
group, in general, has certain well-known characteristics 
which this virus was found to share. For example, 
although it was readily killed by heat at 133-140° F., 
temperatures often used in pasteurization, it was resis- 
tant to drying or freezing and could withstand the 
action of 50 per cent. glycerine for periods up to nine 
months. When animal tissues containing it were con- 
taminated by moulds or bacteria, the virus still survived. 

Another noteworthy effect of this active agent early 
claimed attention. When unfiltered nasal washings 
from influenza patients were injected into rabbits’ lungs, 
other microbic residents of the nose and throat were 
likewise deposited. Ordinarily such bacteria do not 
do any damage under these conditions but are over- 
powered by the active protective mechanisms of the 
body. Butin the presence of the primary injury caused 
by the influenzal agent these bacteria were sometimes 


106 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


able to multiply and cause severe pneumonias. ‘The 
similarity of these accidental infections in the experi- 
mental animals to the secondary pneumonias in man 
led to a series of experiments to put this significant train 
of events to further test. 

These experiments proved that a decrease in the re- 
sistance of the lungs to common bacteria was a charac- 
teristic result of infection with the filterable virus. 
After the lungs had been damaged by the influenzal 
agent the other organisms were injected into the trachea 
or into the blood stream, and from both sources the 
common bacteria invaded the injured lungs and there 
induced a typical pneumonia. ‘To the normal lungs of 
healthy or “control”? animals the same doses of these 
microbes were harmless. 

The first object of the investigation had now been 
accomplished. An infectious agent, present only in the 
nasal washings of influenza patients in the early hours 
of the disease, had been transmitted to laboratory 
animals and could now be studied under experimental 
conditions. ‘The presence of this virus induced changes 
in the blood that are typical of the blood changes in 
human influenza. And the lungs of the infected rabbits 
were found to be the site of typical injuries, which pre- 
disposed them to severe and fatal pneumonias. 

ARTIFICIAL CULTIVATION.—From the beginning of 
the investigation, while the first animal transmission 
experiments were in progress, attempts were made to 
isolate the active agent in artificial cultures outside the 
body. For this purpose the usual methods of cultiva- 
tion were discarded in favour of the particular methods 


EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA 107 


developed by Doctor Noguchi, based on the early ex- 
periments of Doctor Theobald Smith. The Smith- 
Noguchi culture medium, which had proved successful 
in the cultivation of certain highly parasitic microbes, 
consists of dilute blood serum or tissue fluid with a 
small fragment of fresh sterile tissue—usually rabbit 
kidney—and is thus very different from the artificial 
broths and jellies commonly employed in bacteriology. 
Besides furnishing nutritive substances the tissue frag- 
ment creates an environment favourable to those pe- 
culiar “anaerobic”’ micro6érganisms which can live only 
in the absence of air. The choice of this medium for 
the cultivation of the active agent of the animal trans- 
mission experiments proved to be a fortunate one. 

In November, 1918, certain extremely minute but 
characteristic spindle-shaped bodies were observed in 
strictly anaerobic cultures of the filtered nasal washings 
of an influenza patient in the early hours of the disease. 
In size they approached the limit of vision with the high- 
est powers of the microscope so that the sparse growths 
in the early cultures were identifed with the greatest 
difficulty. Soon, however, other cultures were ob- 
tained, both from the filtered nasal washings of other 
influenza patients and from the whole or filtered lung- 
tissue specimens of rabbits which had been typically 
affected by these secretions, as has been described. 

As these minute microorganisms were carried through 
successive generations of culture, they became better 
adapted to artificial cultivation and multiplied more 
luxuriantly, so that the cultures could be used in animal 
experiments with unequivocal results. ‘These experi- 


108 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


ments proved beyond question the identity of the 
active agent obtained from influenza cases and the 
bodies obtained in culture. Both were derived from 
the same sources. Both were filterable. Both pro- 
duced identical effects in rabbits, and from the pulmon- 
ary lesions produced by either, further animal passages, 
or cultures, could be obtained. Both, protected by 
bits of affected lung tissues, withstood 50 per cent. 
glycerine for periods of months. Both had that curious 
property of damaging the lung in such a way as to lower 
its resistance to secondary invasion with ordinary bac- 
teria. It was from this character that the microbe, 
objectively, received itsname. It was called Bacterium 
pneumosintes—a bacter1um that injures the lung. 
Finally, conclusive evidence of the identity of Bacterium 
pneumosintes and the virus from the human nasal 
washings was furnished by a series of experiments which 
showed that a previous infection with either one of these 
pathogenic agents rendered an animal immune to attack 
by the other. 

ImmMunity.—In many infectious diseases, the im-~- 
munity conferred by an attack is associated with the 
appearance in the blood of specific principles, or “anti- 
bodies,” which can be demonstrated by serum tests. 
Efforts were therefore directed toward the observation 
of antibodies in the blood of experimentally infected 
rabbits, and of influenza patients, from which the 
strains of Bacterium pneumosintes ultimately had been 
derived. But it was found that cultures of Bactertwm 
pneumosintes in the Smith-Noguchi medium were un- 
suitable for such experiments. ‘The sparse growth of 


EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA 109 


the earlier generations was mixed with protein precipi- 
tate that interfered with the reactions and had proper- 
ties that precluded its use. It was therefore necessary 
to devise special methods of cultivation, and before 
these methods became available the first opportunity 
was lost to test for antibodies in the blood of influenza 
patients and of affected rabbits. 

It was found later that if the Smith-Noguchi medium 
was enclosed in a collodion sac, surrounded by distilled 
water or physiological salt solution, anaerobic conditions 
were shortly established throughout the system and 
the nutritive and growth-promoting substances of the 
medium diffused through the membrane in sufficient 
quantitiesto support a luxuriant growth inthe surround- 
ing liquid. The protein precipitate that collected 
around the tissue fragment was retained within the sac. 

When it was possible to cultivate Bacterium pneumo- 
sintes by this method in quantities sufficient for use, 
rabbits were repeatedly injected with small doses of 
live cultures, or of heat-killed organisms. After a suit- 
able interval, their blood serum was found to possess 
specific antibodies against Bacterium pneumosintes. 

A significant feature of the immunity experiments 
and also of these serum tests was the fact that all the 
strains tested had similar properties and reacted iden- 
tically with the specific antibodies produced by any 
one of them. This is what would be expected if they 
were all derived from a common source. 

The experiments described above based on the 
epidemic of 1918-1919 and the recurrence of 1920, had 
extended over three years and the facts had been care- 


110 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


fully controlled, and checked by repetition. They 
could not be further extended, however, without fresh 
material from influenza cases and for some time it was 
not possible to determine whether the blood of influenza 
patients contained specific protective substances against 
Bacterium pneumosintes, or whether protection might 
be afforded by subcutaneous injections of the killed 
organism—a method of prevention that has proved so 
efficacious against typhoid fever. An opportunity for 
further study was finally provided by a recurrence of 
epidemic influenza in New York City in January and 
February, 1922. 

With material obtained from a number of early cases 
of influenza in this outbreak, all the essential steps in 
the former investigation were repeated so that this 
series of experiments served to check and confirm the 
results of the earlier work. Especially significant was 
the fact that the new and old strains reacted identically 
in specific serum tests and that rabbits immunized 
against the old strains were subsequently resistant to 
the new ones, thus proving the identity of the micro- 
organisms. 

With the 1922 strains of Bacterium pneumosintes the 
experiments on the blood of recovered patients and on 
the protection afforded by vaccination with killed cul- 
tures could now be carried out. In the blood tests 
specimens of serum were studied from nineteen persons 
who had recovered from influenza from ten days to five 
months previously, and from twenty-two other persons 
who gave no history of influenza since 1920. ‘Thesera of 
the twenty-two controls were uniformly negative in the 


EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA III 


tests. On the other hand, the serum specimens from 
seventeen of the nineteen persons who had influenza 
during the recurrence of 1922 reacted positively and 
thus afforded presumptive eivdence that they had 
recently been infected with Bacterium pneumosintes. 
One of the persons chosen as a control subsequently had 
influenza. It was interesting to find that his blood 
serum, previously negative, reacted positively with 
Bacterium pneumosintes when tested on the tenth and 
eighty-ninth days after recovery. In other instances 
demonstrable antibodies persisted in the blood for at 
least five months following an attack of influenza. 

The second series of experiments that were made possi- 
ble by the acquisition of new and pathogenic strains of 
Bacterium pneumosintes dealt with the immunizing 
effects in rabbits of subcutaneous injections of appro- 
priate doses of the heat-killed organisms. When a 
number of rabbits had been prepared by three injections 
of the killed bacteria the protective effects of the vac- 
cination were demonstrated in two ways. By examina- 
tion of the blood serum it was found that eleven among 
fifteen vaccinated animals had developed specific 
antibodies against Bacterium pneumosintes. ‘Their re- 
sistance was then tested to doses of the living organisms 
which were pathogenic for normal, unvaccinated ani- 
mals. In all but two instances the protection was com- 
plete. Not only did the vaccinated rabbits fail to show 
the characteristic signs of infection with Bacterium 
pneumosintes but, with the two exceptions noted above, 
they were normally resistant to secondary infection 
with ordinary bacteria. Incidentally, it was observed 


112 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


that the doses of vaccine were well borne and did not 
even temporarily reduce the rabbits’ resistance to other 
infections. These experiments therefore pointed the 
way to a similar series of observations in man. 

On the basis of these results the vaccine has been of- 
fered to several groups of men in the United States 
Army. A very wide and extended experience will be 
necessary, however, to determine its value, and at 
present nothing definite can be said as to its efficacy in 
the prevention of influenza. 

Conc.usions.—As the result of this investigation 
at the Rockefeller Institute a hitherto undiscovered 
organism, Bacterium pneumosintes, has been isolated 
from the nose and throat secretions of influenza pa- 
tients in the early hours of the epidemic disease. It is 
filterable, anaerobic, resistant, and pathogenic for rab- 
bits, in which it induces a typical infection seemingly 
identical with epidemic influenza in man. The signifi- 
cant features of this experimental infection are the 
changes in the blood cells and the production of a 
characteristic injury to the lungs associated with a de- 
fect in their resistance to secondary invasion with 
common pathogenic bacteria. 

All the strains of Bacterium pneumosintes have similar 
properties, indicating a common source. Animals 
subjected to a primary infection, or injected with living 
or killed organisms, are immune to subsequent injec- 
tion. The killed bacteria induce specific antibody for- 
mation even when injected subcutaneously in doses well 
tolerated by man. ‘The blood serum of recovered in- 
fluenza patients contains antibodies for Bacterium 


EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA 113 


pneumosintes, whereas that of normal persons does not. 

These experimental observations, reported elsewhere 
in greater detail, especially in view of the source of the 
cultures, their effects in rabbits, their identity, and the 
presence of specific antibodies in the blood serum of re- 
cently recovered influenza patients, point to Bacterium 
pneumosintes as the bacterial incitant of epidemic in- 
fluenza. Moreover, many of the essential facts brought 
out in this study have been confirmed by Loewe and 
Zeman, and by Baehr and Loewe in New York, by Gor- 
don in England, and by Lister in South Africa. The 
significance of similar observations from such widely 
separated localities is obvious. But medical science is 
apparently at the threshold of knowledge of a group or 
class of minute microdrganisms which the anaerobic 
Smith-Noguchi technique and more recently developed 
methods of cultivation have thrown open to exploit- 
ation. This new field of bacteriology invites further in- 
vestigation. It has seemed wise merely to report the 
experimental facts so far obtained and to defer the final 
decision on the precise relation which Bacterium pneu- 
mosintes bears to epidemic influenza until further ex- 
perience is obtained. 


GUIDE To FURTHER READING 


“Twenty-five Years of Bacteriology. A Fragment of Medical 
Research,” by Simon Flexner. Science, 1920, vol. lu, page 615. 

“Parasitism as a Factor in Disease,” by Theobald Smith. Science, 
1921, vol. liv, page 99. 

“Epidemiology and Recent Epidemics,” by Simon Flexner. 
Science, 1919, vol. 1, page 317; Jour. Amer. Med. Assn., 1919, vol. 


Ixxill, page 949. 


114. SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


“Tnfluenza, an Epidemiologic Study,” by Warren T. Vaughan. 
Baltimore. 1921. (Published by American Journal of Hygiene.) 

Influenza. Encyclopedia Britannica, 12th Edition, 1922, new 
vol. 31, page 488. 

“Tnfluenza Studies,” by R. Pearl. U.S. Public Health Reports, 
1919, vol. 34, page 1743. 

“The Epidemiology of Influenza,” by W. H. Frost. U.S. Public 
Health Reports, 1919, vol. 34, page 1823. - . 


OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF 
TUBERCULOSIS 


By Linsty R. Witiiams, M.D. 


Managing Director, The National Tuberculosis Association, New York City 


] ) vcs the 17th and 18th centuries the words 


ba | 


“consumption” and “phthisis” were com- 

monly used to designate various wasting dis- 
eases now known to be of many varied types. In the 
medical literature of this period there appears frequently 
the word “tubercle,” but what the authors meant by this 
word was apparently nothing more than small nodules 
the size of a small pea or smaller which were found from 
time to time in bodies that were examined. ‘Tubercle 
was first described definitely by Baillie in England in 
1793, who, relying on naked-eye observations, differ- 
entiated tubercle from other tumors and commented 
upon its constant appearance in autopsies of persons 
dying of consumption. In 1810 Bayle in Paris at- 
tempted to classify the different types of these tuber- 
cles. A few years later (1819) Laennec, the inventor of 
the stethoscope, showed that in autopsies made of 
persons dying of consumption there were found in the 
lungs small tubercles, agglomerations of many tuber- 
cles. Also he found some tubercles which had under- 
gone a partial degeneration; and found cavities in the 
walls of which small tubercles appeared. By means of 


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TUBERCULOSIS 117 


such studies of degeneration of lung tissue Laennec thus 
showed that consumption and tubercle were nothing 
more than parts of the same situation. 

CoMMUNICABILITY OF TUBERCULOsIs.—No one ap- 
parently believed in the possibility of tuberculosis being 
a communicable disease until the epoch-making studies 
of Villemin, who in 1862 demonstrated by carefully con- 
trolled animal experimentation that tuberculosis could 
be communicated from one animal to another, thus for 
the first time refuting the existing theory that tubercu- 
losis was a hereditary disease. 

Tue Tupercie Bacittus.— The causative agent of 
tuberculosis was not known until in 1882 Koch of Berlin 
described the tubercle bacillus. Not until 1884 did he 
fully describe the nature of this parasite and show that 
the tubercle bacillus was found in tuberculosis of the 
lungs; in “white swellings” which some authorities be- 
lieved to be tuberculosis; in Pott’s Disease; in diseases 
of the hip; and in lupus (tuberculosis of the skin). He 
showed also that this organism, which was always pres- 
ent in these various conditions, could be grown arti- 
ficially in various media in pure culture; that the pure 
culture would show no parasitic life other than the 
tubercle bacillus; that when these tubercle bacilli were 
introduced into animals they reproduced a disease 
identical in its lesions to the disease known as tubercu- 
losis; and finally that these same tubercle bacilli could 
be recovered from the organs of the animal which had 
been given the disease. 

How Do THE BaciLii ENTER THE Bopy?—As soon 
as Koch’s epoch-making discoveries were made known 


SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


to the scientific world, numerous observers began to ex- 


118 


der to learn how the tubercle bacillus 


periment 1n or 


‘There were those who believed that 


entered the body. 


iratory passages; 


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others by way of the skin; and a few 


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who still believed that the disease was hered 


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The researches of Cornet and others 


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that the tubercle bacill 
mother to infant. 
showed that 

could read 


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For a considerable time nearly all the methods for the 


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TUBERCULOSIS 11g 


prevention of tuberculosis were based on the assump- 
tion that tuberculosis was caused by inhaling tubercle 
bacilli. Later researches, however, showed that experi- 
mental tuberculosis could also be produced in animals 
by means of the ingestion of food impregnated with 
tuberculous material or tubercle bacilli. When these 
animals were autopsied they showed not only tubercu- 
losis of the intestinal tract, but also tuberculosis of the 
lungs. Also tubercles could commonly be found in the 
lymphatic ducts passing from the intestinal tract to the 
lymph glands of the lung. Von Behring in 1903 made 
a great contribution to our knowledge when similar ex- 
periments performed by him with very young animals 
showed that when the tubercle bacilli were ingested 
they might induce tuberculosis of the mesentary nodes 
or of the bronchial lymph nodes without causing any 
lesion in the intestinal tract. He stated as a hypothesis 
that tuberculous infection in man would commonly 
take place during childhood through the digestive tract 
and that the tubercle baccili would lie dormant in the 
bronchial lymph nodes for an indefinite period of time. 
Skin infection was also proved to be possible though 
rare. 

INFLUENCE OF THE BACILLI ON THE Bopy.—The 
effect of the tubercle bacilli on the body, once having 
entered it, depends upon a number of factors. ‘These 
factors are the initial number of tubercle bacilli, the 
virulence of the bacilli, and the capacity of the body to 
manufacture products which tend to wall off the bacilli 
or to kill them. If the number of bacilli be relatively 
small and the resistance of the individual good, the 


120 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


bacilli will do little harm. This is true even if they are 
lodged in a number of places, for a reaction is induced 
which causes the growth of epithelial and interstitial 
cells which soon form a globular mass and completely 
surround the tubercle bacilli. The bacilli may remain 
alive and virulent but are walled off from the rest of the 
body. These small pin-head size masses of walled-off 
bacilli are not always readily detected. They are 
known as miliary tubercles. 

If, however, the conditions are favourable for the 
growth of the tubercle bacilli and they find satisfactory 
conditions for their nourishment within the body, the 
tissues adjacent to the bacilli are injured and although 
new cells are formed, these new cells in turn are killed 
and the area of dead tissue enlarges, so that we soon 
have an ulcerating sore in some part of the body. On 
the other hand, a series of small tubercles may be near 
together and may combine into one larger tubercle as 
big as a pea or larger. The tubercle bacilli encased 
within the wall or cells may not kill the cells which sur- 
round them, but may gradually cause the degeneration 
of these cells so that this larger globular tubercle be- 
comes a soft granular mass. When these conditions 
develop, a variety of symptoms occur and the individual 
is then said to have tuberculosis. 

In the vast majority of instances, when infection 
takes place the number of bacilli is limited and the 
process of walling them off from the rest of the body 
does not cause any disturbance. If, however, a con- 
siderable number of tubercles are being formed at the 
same time, the growth of the tubercle bacilli and the 


TUBERCULOSIS 121 


effort of the body to wall off these bacilli produce a 
reaction as a result of the dissemination throughout the 
body of the products of the tubercle bacilli. This re- 
action is expressed in terms of symptoms which make 
the individual realize that something is wrong. In a 
comparatively small number of instances this tubercu- 
lous process becomes chronic, the tubercle bacilli con- 
tinue to grow, the infected areas become larger and 
larger, and more and more of the organ in which they 
are seated becomes destroyed. More and more symp- 
toms are produced and the efficiency of the body is 
reduced by the influence of the poisons distributed 
throughout the body in the circulating blood and by the 
destruction of part of some organ of the body. In rare 
instances a tubercle may grow in the wall at a small vein 
or in a small artery and eventually rupture into the 
vein, and the contents of the tubercle with many tuber- 
cle bacilli are thus discharged into the blood stream. 
When this takes place there is a rapid dissemination of 
bacilli throughout the body, causing a marked increase 
in the number of tubercles growing in the body. In 
such a case the condition known as miliary tubercu- 
losis is produced. 

Herepity.—As has been stated, until the time of 
Villemin the generally accepted theory was that tuber- 
culosis was hereditary. It is now known that fetal 
infection may occur but that when such infection oc- 
curs, the mother is in the advanced stages of tuberculosis 
and tubercle bacilli are circulating in the blood which 
passes through the placenta into the fetus. This is a 
rare occurrence and in only a few instances have reports 


122 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


been made of the presence of tuberculosis in a newly 
born child. The tubercle bacilli are rarely found in the 
circulating blood, and individuals or animals which are 
promptly removed from tuberculous parents do not 


DEATH RATE FROM TUBERCULOSIS, ALL FORMS 
1910 ANDO 1920 
COMPARISON FOR CERTAIN AGE GROUPS 


U.SREGIS TRATION AREA 


(50 


$0 





° 


RATE | 160 44 205 Ul 
LEGEND. 
Ig10 ALL AGES | UNDER IYR.| 1 TO 14 YRS. | 15 TO 44, YRS.| 45 TO 74 YRS) TVYRS BOVER 
1920 


necessarily become diseased. It is also known that 
tuberculosis is extremely rare in foundling asylums 
and that in thousands of children autopsied during the 
first year of their life tuberculosis is hardly ever found 










TUBERCULOSIS 123 


unless the child had been constantly exposed to an in- 
dividual affected with advanced tuberculosis. It has 
been noted also amongst the thousands of infants 
placed out to board by the municipality of Paris that 
tuberculosis is rarely responsible for death during the 
first years of their life. 

EVIDENCE OF THE PRESENCE OF TUBERCLE BACILLI 
IN Heattuy INpivipuats.—N aegeli in 1900 reported 
that he had autopsied over 500 adults dying of all types 
of disease and found upon careful examination that 
tubercle was found in 97 per cent. of these autopsies. 
Many observations were made in the latter part of the 
1gth century on the autopsies of children which con- 
troverted the findings of Naegeli in adults. Loomis in 
New York in 1890 reported the autopsies of a large 
number of adults who had died as a result of traumatism 
and found in practically every instance that tubercles 
were present although the individual did not have the 
disease known as tuberculosis. Loomis removed the 
tubercles from the dead bodies of these healthy adults 
and injected them into rabbits and this injection almost 
invariably caused tuberculosis. So that prior to the 
discovery of tuberculin by Koch, it had been surmised 
if not generally accepted that the tubercle bacilli were 
pretty generally present amongst all adults and that it 
was extremely rare to find any evidence of the presence 
of tubercle bacilli in infants. 

TuBercuLin.—Tuberculin, a product of the tubercle 
bacilli, was discovered by Koch in 1894 and thought by 
him to have great curative value. Tuberculin when 
administered subcutaneously produces local, systemic, 


124 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


and focal reactions. A local inflammation is produced 
at the site of injection, a general reaction characterized 
by headache, backache, and fever, and a renewed or 
increased activity at the site of injection. This latter 
can readily be seenin lupus. ‘Tuberculin was advocated 
by Koch as a curative agent, but it has been proven 
almost valueless and when not properly administered 
does more harm than good. Koch announced that the 
general reaction did not take place except in tubercu- 
losis, but many observers soon found that healthy in- 
dividuals reacted when larger doses were given. It 
was found that sometimes 50 per cent. of adults reacted, 
and even go per cent. at times, depending on the size 
of the dose. Its diagnostic value was therefore minim- 
ized. Calmette and Wolff-Eisner found that tuber- 
culin dropped in the eye would produce a reaction. 
Moro rubbed it into the skin and finally Pirquet in 1907 
found that if a very slight abrasion were made in the 
skin and a drop of tuberculin placed on the abrasion, 
a local reaction would take place in tuberculous per- 
sons, but without systemic or focal reaction. At first 
this test was thought to be of great diagnostic value, but 
as in the subcutaneous test it seemed that nearly every 
one healthy or tuberculous reacted, with the exception 
of very young children. Here was a phenomenon which 
was difficult at first to accept; but Naegeli had shown 
that 97 per cent. of adults autopsied showed an old 
tuberculous process and many others had shown that 
tuberculous lesions were rare in infants, but that as the 
child grew older the lesions were more frequently found. 
It is evident then that there was a marked difference 


TUBERCULOSIS 125 


between tuberculous infection and tuberculous disease. 
Almost every child in civilized communities is exposed 
to tubercle bacilli and infection takes place either 
through the respiratory or digestive tract, so that by 
fifteen years of age, nearly every child has become in- 
fected. It is true that nearly all adults harbour tu- 
bercle bacilli in their bodies, but only when for some 
special reason these bacilli begin to grow or when 
additional large numbers of bacilli enter the body does 
the individual become affected with the disease tubercu- 
losis. 

TuBERCULOsIS IN Man anp AnimaAts.—The natural 
habitat of the tubercle bacilli is the bodies of men and 
domestic animals. In the aboriginal Negro, tubercu- 
losis is rarely found unless he is brought in contact with 
civilization. Occasionally tuberculosis is found in wild 
animals but usually when they have become domesti- 
cated. Three special types of tubercle bacilli are 
known: the human, bovine, and avian. The human 
strain is most virulent to man, the bovine less virulent 
and the avian bacilli are a negligible factor in human 
tuberculosis. We have already seen that tubercle in- 
fection is almost ubiquitous among civilized people of 
the human race. ‘This is also true of the bovine races, 
but in other animals it is far less common. ‘The ba- 
cilli, however, will live for months outside of the body 
but are killed by sunlight. ‘The disease tuberculosis, 
although occurring in but a small proportion of those in- 
fected, is one of the most serious of diseases. 

During the past century one seventh of all deaths 
were the result of tuberculosis. During the year 1921 


126 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


100,000 persons died of tuberculosis in the United States 
and from 86 per cent. to 90 per cent. of them died of 
pulmonary tuberculosis. Further, we know that for 
each person dead of tuberculosis, there are at least 
three seriously ill of tuberculosis and at least seven 
more who have symptoms from time to time. This 


| FROM TUBERCULOSIS IN NEW YORK CITY 


PER EACH [00,000 INHABITANTS, SINCE 1898 






H coxooo. [59e{659;s00] 0719021903] 904|s05] 906] 907/905] s0qisio | oz iaaTgAlooioejO Meh aoheco|Velfsezoespwedees] TAT | 
mi SEE 
250 = 250 
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vk Phy ince ase cetera f ; 4 Ree | 


i } Wisi * Pg eh DN xy : Bircupy 

L J ; oO 
PULMONARY 236 239 237 229 207\212 218 212 216 209 198 187 181 180 173 171 173 169 159 164 160 132 109 
OTKER FORMS 47 47 43.35 36 34 32 28 30 29 29 27 29 30 28 28 27 27 23 24 24 20 7 ; 
ALL FORMS 283 286 280 264 243 246 250 240 246 238 227 214 210 210 20) 199 200 196 182 188 184 152 126 : 





ORNS FEC LAE CANT aed 


G.J. DROLET, Statistician 
New York TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION 


means that at least a million persons in the United 
States will be either seriously ill or have symptoms of 
tuberculosis this year. A similar situation exists 
among all civilized races. 

These enormous numbers of deaths and _ illnesses 
occur most frequently during early adult life and chiefly 
among the wage-earner group. When standards of 


TUBERCULOSIS 127 


living are low or overcrowding or under-nourishment 
exists, the death rates are higher, and conversely among 
the wealthier class the amount of disease and death is 
low. 

IMMUNITY FROM TUBERCULOsIs.—Practically no one 
is immune to infection, but many are immune to the 
disease. The exact reason for this immunity is not 
known. Immunity is racial, family, or individual. 
The Jews and the Italians are relatively immune while 
the Irish and the Negroes have very little immunity. 
Family immunity exists, for in many families no evidence 
of tuberculosis may exist for generations. Then some- 
times one individual in a family may remain well when 
all other members become diseased even though ap- 
parently exposed to the same dangers. Individual 
immunity varies also, for the immunity is lowered by 
acute illness, pregnancy, childbirth, long hours of 
laborious work, and constant undernourishment. 

DancERs OF INFECTION AND DisEase.— lhe dangers 
are twofold. First, the risk of receiving at one time 
large quantities of tubercle bacilli from a case of ad- 
vanced pulmonary tuberculosis or from the milk of a 
cow with tuberculosis of the udder. Second, having 
one’s resistance lowered as a result of ill health or a poor 
standard of living. In many instances both factors 
play a part, as when a healthy woman cares for her 
tuberculous husband, the family income is lowered, the 
woman’s work becomes more arduous and she is con- 
stantly exposed to infection. ‘There is no considerable 
danger, however, from the brief exposure of healthy 
individuals to those affected with tuberculosis which 


128 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


may occur daily in our crowded cities. Nurses, 
physicians, or employees in hospitals and sanatoria for 
tuberculosis are not thought to be in any considerable 
danger. In the latter case the patients are trained in 
the employment of sanitary precautions and tubercu- 
losis is more rare in this class of hospital employees than 
in the same class outside of institutions. Consequently 
the presence of such an institution in a community is 
of no danger to its population. Milk from cows not 
proven to be free from tuberculosis is undoubtedly a 
source of danger, especially to young children whose 
intestinal wall will not always prevent the tubercle 
bacillus from entering the lymphatic system. Proper 
methods of pasteurization remove this danger. 
SYMPTOMS OF PULMONARY ‘TuUBERCULOsIS.—Ihe 
symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis at the onset are 
cough with or without expectoration, loss of weight and 
strength, slight rise of temperature, and the spitting 
of blood. Any one or any group of these symptoms 
should arouse suspicion, and the patient merits a phys- 
ical examination and an examination of the sputum, 
if there is any, for tubercle bacilli. If they are present 
it is a positive diagnosis. ‘The examinations should be 
repeated if symptoms persist and an X-ray examination 
should be made also. ‘The disease may be active, how- 
ever, and detected by medical examination even when 
no symptoms exist. Fortunately this condition is re- 
latively rare. Persistent cough and unexplained fever 
are danger signals and a pulmonary hemorrhage or 
hemoptysis is almost positively diagnostic. If the 
disease progresses, cough and expectoration, fever, 


TUBERCULOSIS 129 


emaciation and night sweats are the prominent symp- 
toms. Hemorrhages may occur and complications may 
arise in various parts of the body. 

Non-Putmonary ‘TusercuLosis.—If tuberculous 
disease develops elsewhere than in the lungs, it develops 


NEW YORK CITY DEATHS FROM TUBERCULOSIS 
SINCE 1898 
Sens (5653 0505053504050 8 00 OT OAT 


10.000 | 
9,000 [f : 
71.000 |e =| : ie he | | 

.000 (et em fea (es | i | se We / | 
5.000 [faa lag i AL : 14 5 | 
«ooo lid i ie a ‘ee - 

3.000 (haa ieat ee | : ‘s 


be) 
ranean? 7124 GoI5 8154 B135 7569 8020 8512 8535 8955 6999 686) 6643 8692 6190 8561 860! 8518 6625 G4ll 8825 8179 7355 6164 


a Stal 9265 9577 9630 9390 8883 9304 N69 9656 10194 10262 10157 D911 10074 10250 9981 10031 10290 0249 9648 10142 10097 8498 7134 





ea PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS ESSE] OTHER FORMS OF TUBERCULOSIS 


a train of symptoms depending primarily on its location. 
If the meninges be affected, symptoms of meningitis; if 
the pleura or peritoneum, symptoms of pleurisy or 
peritonitis; if the intestines, symptoms of inflammation 
of the bowels; if glands, symptoms of inflammation re- 
sulting in a cold abscess; if bone or joint, symptoms of 
osteitis or arthritis. 

TREATMENT OF TuBERCULOsIS.—Any chronic disease 
to be successfully treated requires two important fac- 


1430 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


tors—a skilled physician and a patient with character 
and an earnest desire to get well, come what may. 
There is no specific cure for tuberculosis though many 
cures have been heralded. Reliance must be placed 
upon rest, nourishment, and fresh air under the guid- 
ance of the physician. Sanatorium treatment is 
extremely valuable in training the patient to follow 
closely rules of conduct as to food, air, and rest, and the 
more skilled physicians are usually found in sanatoria 
or in resorts near them. Climate is a relatively unim- 
portant factor, for recoveries take place in our crowded 
cities and in all climates. The disease was once sup- 
posed to be incurable. Not only are most cases cur- 
able, but thousands of persons who have been cured 
gladly give this testimony. 

THE PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOsSIS.—Preventive 
measures are primarily those which will prevent the 
bacilli from entering a healthy body by killing the bacilli 
as soon as they leave an infected body. If all bacilli 
coming from tuberculous individuals in the sputum or 
other discharges could be destroyed and all milk coming 
from tuberculous cows could be pasteurized, tubercu- 
losis would soon disappear. Unfortunately, large 
masses of people do not know this and many persons 
have tuberculosis who do not know it, or even after they 
know it they endanger the lives of their families by care- 
less habits. It is necessary, therefore, to educate the 
public in so far as is possible; to provide sanatoria for 
the care and cure of tuberculosis; to provide hospitals or 
special pavilions for the isolating of the more dangerous 
advanced cases; dispensaries to care for ambulatory or 


TUBERCULOSIS 131 


moderately advanced cases, to supervise the chronic 
milder cases and to ascertain what facilities are avail- 
able for institutional care; and finally public health or 
tuberculosis nurses to educate the other members of 
the patient’s family and others to take the precautions 
necessary to prevent the disease. 

Other general measures which improve the public 
health or the individual health are useful. Public 
health measures which provide pure water, sewage 
disposal, clean streets, sanitary housing, and measures 
which prevent other communicable diseases; general 
measures which improve the individual health by means 
of education of the care of the body; the Modern Health 
Crusade which not only teaches children the principles 
of health, but also trains them to acquire healthy habits; 
the playground, the summer camp, the fresh-air home, 
outdoor sports, proper habits of exercise and diet, rest 
and play and all measures which improve body health 
help in the prevention of tuberculosis. 

REsuULTs OF PREVENTION.—T[he death rate in the 
United States from tuberculosis has fallen from 201 to 
99 per 100,000 during the past twenty years, which 
caused a saving of 100,000 lives in 1921. ‘The value of 
these lives is almost beyond compute, as is also the cost 
of caring for such an army of sick persons. Suffering, 
death, and sorrows have diminished, but there still 
remains much to be done. 

Work STILL To BE Done.—More scientific research 
to determine many unknown factors on infection and 
immunity and the final perfection of a cure for tubercu- 
losis which would be as effective as quinine is for malaria, 


1432 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


or a preventive as effective as vaccination for smallpox. 
Failing these, there is great need for increased education 
of the public, more health education for school children, 
better training for physicians and nurses from the 
scientific and social aspect. Most persons need not 
have tuberculosis unless they choose to do so by de- 
clining to do the things necessary for its prevention. 


GUIDE To FURTHER READING 


“Pulmonary Tuberculosis,” by Otis. (Leonard.) 1920. 

“Early Pulmonary Tuberculosis,” by Hawes. (Wood.) 1913. 

“Rules for Recovery from Pulmonary Tuberculosis,” by Brown. 
(Lea and Febinger, 4th edition, revised and enlarged.) 1923. 

“Rest and Other Things,’ by Krause. (Williams & Wilkins.) 
1923. 

“Environment and Resistance in Tuberculosis,” by Krause. 
(Williams & Wilkins.) 1923. 

“The Causes of Tuberculosis,” by Cobbett. (Cambridge Univer- 
sity Press.) 1917. 

Bulstrode lecture, Lancet, 1903, vol. 2, page 1199. 

“Congenital Tuberculosis,’ by Warthin and Couie. Journal of 
Infectious Diseases, vol. 1, page 140. 

“Relation of Human and Bovine Tuberculosis.” Report of 
British Royal Commission, 1905. 

“What You Should Know About Tuberculosis.” Pamphlet 106, 
National Tuberculosis Association. 

“Sitting and Sleeping in the Open Air.”’ Pamphlet 1o1, National 
Tuberculosis Association. 


LOUIS PASTEUR, AND LENGTHENED HUMAN 
LIFE 


By Otis W. CaLtpweELL, Pu.D. 


Teachers College, Columbia University 


\ ), Y HEN Louis Pasteur was sixteen years old his 
father, anxious about his education, decided 

to send him from the home town of Arbois 

to Paris. The boy was to have the advantage of instruc- 
tion in the Ecole Normale, a school in which the father 
thought there would be an exceptionally good oppor- 
tunity for his boy since the Ecole Normale had been es- 
tablished to train men for college positions. This was in 
1838, when schools were not generally as good in France 
as they are to-day. The elder Pasteur did not have 
the privilege of much schooling but had gained a fair 
education for his time by personal industry and efforts. 
Like many a father of recent times, or to-day for that 
matter, Louis’ hardworking father decided that poverty 
should not deprive his son of a good education, and thus 
planned family sacrifices in the name of the boy’s 
education. ‘hat parental sacrifice does not guarantee 
an education was as true of Louis Pasteur as it has 
proved to be of many another boy or girl. No sooner 
did the boy find himself at the school in Paris than an 
old and honourable malady befell the boy—homesick- 
ness. It is honourable and eminently respectable to, 

133 


134. SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


be homesick, even almost disgraceful not to be so on 
occasion; but succumbing to this worthy emotional 
illness is not so respectable. 

Louis Pasteur’s father was a tanner of hides, as had 
been his grandfather and great-grandfather. His 
home was near the malodorous tannery yard, and his 
childhood home street in Déle before his family moved 
to Arbois, was known as the “‘street of the tanners.” 
From his birth in 1822 until he was almost sixteen years 
of age, his life had been more or less associated with the 
tannery. And now, as a lonesome boy in a distant 
school, in a great city one hundred leagues from home, 
he longed so earnestly “for a whiff of the old tannery” 
that genuine illness would have been welcome if it 
could have secured his return to his home. Hours were 
days to the boy, and he soon decided he could stand it no 
longer. His work was poor, he was miserable, and so 
wrote to his father. ‘The father, with much depression, 
went to Paris and took the boy back to his Arbois home. 

The halo over the home and playground is some- 
times more easily seen one hundred leagues away than 
close at hand. It was so with young Pasteur, for the 
halo evanesced and certain stern realities appeared. 
He soon announced his readiness to return to Paris, but 
the wise father replied that the schools of Arbois would 
suffice for the present. The boy became an outstanding 
pupil in drawing, so recognized by all. At night he 
went over all of his day’s lessons with his father, not 
the lessons of the next day, as 1s so commonly done now- | 
adays to make sure that pupils know their lessons; but 
the lessons of the preceding morning and afternoon, as 


LOUIS PASTEUR 135 


the father desired to learn those things with which the 
son was dealing, and Louis became truly his father’s 
teacher. [wo years in the schools of Arbois, then two 
years in the college at Besancon not far from Arbois, 
brought to Louis recognition as a successful student and 
as a tutor of his fellows. ‘Then, at twenty years of age, 
in 1842, he returned to Paris as a student in the Ecole 
Normale, soon to be widely recognized as a young man 
of industry, intellectual integrity, and earnest devotion 
to his studies. 

In addition to other studies, Pasteur attended lec- 
tures at the Sorbonne and devoted much time to the 
study of the structure of crystals. He became widely 
known and highly respected as a student of chemistry, 
and on January 15, 1849, began an eight-year period of 
useful service as professor of chemistry at the University 
of Strassburg. A characteristic Pasteurism occurred 
in the early part of his stay at Strassburg. ‘The rector 
of the University was most cordial to the newly arrived 
professor of chemistry and took him to his home, where 
Pasteur was introduced to the rector’s wife and daughter. 
In two weeks Louis addressed a lengthy letter to the 
rector, serving notice that the elder Pasteur, according 
to the customs of the times, would soon appear and 
propose marriage between Louis and the daughter. In 
this letter Louis informed the rector that, “as to the 
future, unless my tastes should completely change, I 
shall give myself up entirely to chemical research.” 
The father came, the proposal was made and duly ac- 
cepted, the marriage occurred in three months. 

At the close of 1854 Pasteur left Strassburg for a pro- 


1436 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


fessorship at the University of Lille, where he served 
for two years. Then he went back to Paris, which 
was the central location of his work for the rest of 
his life. 

When Pasteur went to Lille he fully expected to con- 
tinue his studies in chemical and physical problems 
relative to crystals. The brewers and wine makers 
about Lille were having great difficulty since they could 
not be certain to secure the kinds of fermentation speci- 
fically needed in different cases, in order to produce the 
different specific results they desired. The wine and 
beer “‘went wrong,” fermentation could not be con- 
trolled, and the industry was suffering great financial 
losses, said to exceed $20,000,000 yearly in certain 
years. Pasteur was known as a chemist, and as a mani- 
pulator of the crude microscopes of that day. The 
manufacturers appealed to him to solve their problems, 
and he reluctantly agreed to the temporary diversion 
from his chosen studies, for he saw in this study great 
possibilities of new knowledge. Through the studies of 
famous German students, much had recently been 
learned about the yeasts which produce fermentation 
and about certain bacteria, but application of these 
studies had not been made in the brewing industries. 
There was still extended belief that the living organisms 
of fermentation came into existence spontaneously 
(spontaneous generation of life, as it was called), and 
that such organisms spring into existence in the wine 
and beer because of “‘a vital force of nature,” and thus 
injure it. Pasteur, and others even more than Pasteur, 
proved that if nutritive liquids are sterilized and con- 


LOUIS PASTEUR 137 


stantly kept from contact with air and other unsterile 
substances, no organisms will develop within this nutri- 
tive liquid no matter how long the experiment is con- 
tinued. There was recently exhibited in the United 
States (1922), a flask of beef broth which it is claimed, 
correctly no doubt, that Pasteur prepared over fifty 
years ago. The beef broth is still fresh-looking and 
clear, never having had the stopper removed from the 
glass flask in which the broth has been constantly kept. 
Small living things, like the larger ones which we readily 
see, come only from other living things of their own 
kind. ‘The process of treating wines as recommended 
by Pasteur, known as pasteurization, has since been 
applied to milk in all civilized countries. 

With previously gained facts in mind, Pasteur pro- 
ceeded to separate single living yeast plants under his 
microscope, and then to grow pure cultures from these 
organisms thus separated. He not only found that 
they grew as pure culture, but that each kind of small 
organism produced its own peculiar kind of fermenta- 
tive products in the nutritive liquids. He thus taught 
the brewers and wine manufacturers how to separate, 
grow, and use the particular kinds of living microscopic 
organisms which produce the kinds of wine and beer 
that they desired. 

We are not keenly interested in the fact that such dis- 
coveries taught people how to save the alcoholic in- 
dustries of France and Germany. What interests us 
most is that he isolated the microscopic organisms, 
grew them in pure cultures, and proved that micro- 
scopic living things, like the larger ones we readily see, 


138 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


each produces its own peculiar results as product of its 
life and growth. 

We need to recall that when Pasteur was studying 
fermentation the human race did not know the causes of 
human diseases. Causes had been suspected, but not 
proved. What we know to-day as the science of public 
health did not exist. ‘The bacterial origin of diseases 
was merely suspected, and the idea generally ridiculed. 
If a person had been bold enough to assert as true even 
a small part of what we now know to be true, such a 
person would have been thought insane or foolish. It 
was then not uncommon to think that persons who be- 
came ill had been guilty of some gross wrong-doing, and 
that illness was sent upon them as punishment for their 
sins. Or it was sometimes said that the “humours of 
the body,” of which the blood and the bile were two, in 
some way got into wrong proportions or became de- 
ranged and thus caused illness. It is now generally 
known that most, if not all, common diseases are caused 
by living microscopic organisms, either bacteria or 
small animal parasites. ‘Though this knowledge is but 
a few decades old, it is so common that it is difficult to 
put ourselves back to the recent date when the human 
race did not possess this knowledge. It is of such un- 
told importance that Louis Pasteur lived and accom- 
plished what he did, that, as we read this chapter, we 
must imagine ourselves for a time moved back a little 
more than forty years in the history of man’s desire 
and efforts to have better health. Then, as now, most 
people wished to live instead of to die, and while living 
wished to have the best possible health. ‘Then, as now, 


LOUIS PASTEUR 139 


there were some benighted people who would not do 
the things necessary to produce good health, even if 
knowledge of how to do them were available. 

When Pasteur’s yeast and spontaneous generation 
studies were almost completed, he was urged to go to 
southern France to try to discover why the silk worms 
were sick. He tried to decline saying: “I have never 
touched a silk worm in my life.”” Why did people urge 
Pasteur to dothis? Why didn’t they call a bacteriolo- 
gist or a student of insect diseases? At that time there 
were no bacteriologists because there was no bacteriol- 
ogy. Of course there were bacteria, but since no one 
then knew the laws of bacteria, there was no bac- 
teriology. Likewise there was no science of insect 
diseases, or science of diseases’of men as we now under- 
stand those terms. 

For many years the silk industry of France had suf- 
fered. Often the worms became sick and died, or if 
they lived, they produced poor cocoons. Poor cocoons, 
Or no cocoons, mean reduction or loss of the desired 
silk, which means poorer food for the people, poorer 
education for their children, and all the poorer things 
which accompany reduction or loss of a fundamental in- 
dustry. So important was the silk industry in southern 
- France, and so great the anxiety about the health of the 
silkworms, that one writer says the workers when meet- 
ing would salute one another by saying: “Good morn- 
ing! How are the silkworms this morning?” What 
they desired was good healthy adult silk moths which 
laid good moth eggs; that these eggs should hatch into 
worms which might feed and grow healthily upon their 


140 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


food, the mulberry leaves; that the full-grown worms 
might spin good cocoons from which the workers could 
unravel the desired silk; that enough good cocoons 
should be left to produce adult moths to continue pro- 
duction of new supplies of healthy eggs. | 
Pasteur began this study in 1865. He studied the 
eggs and found within some of them certain small 
bodies resembling the smallest animal cells. He called 
these bodies corpuscles, simply meaning “small bodies.” 
He noted that when eggs which contained the cor- 
puscles hatched, the worms were sickly and usually 
died. Using his crude microscope, he separated the 
eggs which contained no corpuscles and caused them to 
hatch. The worms thus produced seemed to be healthy, 
and after careful work, Pasteur announced that people 
could produce healthy worms and good cocoons by se- 
lecting eggs which contained no corpuscles. When this 
was tried and failed, Pasteur patiently returned to his 
microscopic studies and found another small organism, 
a bacterium, and immediately concluded that the silk- 
worms had two diseases instead of one. One, pebrine, 
was caused by the animal corpuscles; and the other, 
flacherie, caused by bacteria. Through long and care- 
ful experiments he discovered that eggs selected so as 
to be free from corpuscles and bacteria would produce 
healthy worms; that such worms when grown upon 
fresh mulberry leaves would mature and produce good 
silk cocoons; but that even healthy worms when grown 
were likely to sicken and die. He thusconcluded that the 
corpuscles and bacteria produce the diseases, and that 
diseases from sick worms may be transmitted to healthy 





LOUIS PASTEUR 
“France and Humanity Grateful” 





LOUIS PASTEUR I4I 


worms by contact with the food in which sick worms 
have fed. It is not so important that Pasteur taught 
France how to save her silk industry as it is that he 
proved that the small organisms produce the diseases; 
that transmission of the organisms may transmit the 
disease; and that prevention of transmission prevents 
disease. We are not likely to over-estimate the im- 
portance of these discoveries to modern public and 
individual health. 

Meantime the cattle and sheep industry of France 
and of other countries was suffering from a disease 
known as anthrax. So deadly was anthrax to human 
beings that when once it was clear that a person had 
the disease, it was regarded almost as a death warrant, 
Fortunately and for reasons then unknown, the disease 
did not often attack human beings. Its destruction of 
cattle and sheep was enormous. 

Other students had discovered the nature of the 
bacterium which causes anthrax and had definitely 
proved the causal relation of the organism. But since 
no preventive or cure had been discovered, people 
appealed publicly to Pasteur to attack the problem. 
No less than 3600 public officers and prominent citizens 
signed petitions to Pasteur to undertake to find a means 
of preventing the ravages of this dreaded disease. He 
responded and began the study. It is interesting and 
important to know that the so-called anthrax bacteria 
cause the disease anthrax; but if they cannot be kept 
from causing the disease what does the knowledge profit 
us? If cattle and sheep and men must die, there 
really isn’t large comfort in mere knowledge of what 


142 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


caused this wholesale death. That knowledge was es- 
sential for the beginning of Pasteur’s study, but was 
merely the beginning. 

After many efforts, too many and too intensive to be 
related in this connection, Pasteur recalled an impor- 
tant discovery made by the Englishman, Jenner, in 
1798. Jenner, working in England, noted that persons 
who milked cows which were ill with cowpox contracted 
a disease resembling human smallpox, and that there- 
after such persons would not contract smallpox from 
human beings ill with that disease. Jenner devised 
means, now improved and known to everyone, for 
giving human beings generally the infection or vacci- 
nation which protects against smallpox. In recalling 
this situation, Pasteur argued that smallpox was caused 
by a living organism; that the organism when it lived 
in cattle did not flourish, and that this organism when 
introduced from cattle into human beings was not vig- 
orous enough to produce a bad case of smallpox; that the 
case produced was bad enough, however, to leave some 
kind of protection or immunity against an attack from 
organisms from persons who have a vigorous case of 
smallpox. ‘This line of thought is most interesting 
when we recall that we do not yet possess satisfactory 
evidence as to just what kind of an organism causes 
smallpox. 

Meantime Pasteur had been carrying on experiments 
with chicken cholera. He left cultures of chicken chol- 
era germs in his laboratory, and went away for a short 
vacation. Upon his return he found that these old cul- 
tures would no longer produce chicken cholera when 


LOUIS PASTEUR 143 


some of the cultures were injected into fowls. Most 
important of all, he found that after the fowls had been 
treated with these old cultures they would not take 
chicken cholera even when injected with fresh and viru- 
lent germs. ‘Therefore partly by chance came the dis- 
covery of the process of vaccinating poultry against 
cholera by use of depleted cholera germs or possibly 
by use of the dead products remaining in old cultures of 
these germs. 

Thus Pasteur began his efforts to reduce the vigour of 
anthrax germs so that perchance they might not pro- 
duce anthrax of usual destructiveness. Many highly 
illuminating experiments were performed. Finally, by 
growing anthrax bacteria in beef broth at high tempera- 
tures, it was found that they flourished for a time, then 
slowly died out. By using some of these cultures when 
the bacteria were much depleted, it was found that sheep 
could be given mild attacks of anthrax from which they 
recovered. After their recovery they were given fully 
active anthrax germs, from which the sheep promptly 
developed bad cases of anthrax and died. Pasteur 
then tried a first vaccination of depleted bacteria, and 
when the sheep had recovered, gave a second mild at- 
tack by use of bacteria much less depleted than those 
first used, but far from normal vigour. The sheep and 
cattle upon which this experiment was tried took suc- 
cessive mild attacks of anthrax. Thereafter, fully 
virulent anthrax bacteria failed to produce the disease, 
and Pasteur announced his triumph in producing pro- 
gressive vaccination with successful results. 

So important was this discovery that Pasteur was 


144 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


challenged to make a public demonstration of his claims. 
The Agriculture Society at Melun, France, offered to 
provide sheep and cattle for the demonstration. Dele- 
gates were invited and came from many interested 
organizations and countries. Pasteur penned ten 
sheep to serve as controls to determine whether anthrax 
was in the food, air, or water given to them and to the 
other sheep and cattle. “Twenty-five sheep and six 
cows were to be vaccinated, and twenty-three sheep, 
two goats, and four cows were not to be vaccinated but 
were to receive fully virulent anthrax bacteria at the 
same time as the vaccinated sheep and cattle. On 
May 5, 1881, the first vaccination was given to the 
twenty-five sheep and six cows. On May 17, 1881, the 
second vaccination was given to the same animals. On 
May 31, 1881, fully virulent anthrax germs were given 
to all vaccinated sheep and cows, to the four remaining 
cows, and to the twenty-three sheep and the goats. 
Pasteur told the delegates to return on June 2. This 
direction was unnecessary as most of them did not leave, 
so keenly did they appreciate the momentous impor- 
tance of what was goingon. Many were disbelievers and 
expected Pasteur’s downfall. The results were trium- 
phant. On the morning of June 2, all of the non- 
vaccinated sheep and cows and the goats were dead, 
dying, or severely ill. Not a vaccinated sheep or cow ora 
control sheep died as a result of the treatment they had 
received. Since that day the human race has known 
how to avoid anthrax, if only it will do what is known as 
good to do. More than this, the idea of successive 
vaccination was proved, and this has been the founda- 


LOUIS PASTEUR 145 


tion of many subsequent advances in prevention of 
diseases of several types. 

Did Pasteur then retire from active labour, one man’s 
gigantic work having been done? Did he remind his 
co-workers that since 1868 half-paralysis had made his 
work very difficult? No! Rather he reminded his 
closest friends that his part-paralysis which he suffered 
in 1868 enabled him to make more cautious and effective 
use of those parts of his body not affected by his mal- 
ady—a malady for which the answer is not yet at hand. 
Instead he turned now to his last and most spectacular 
achievement. For many years the sympathies of this 
great founder of the science of bacteriology had been 
sorely tried because of the ravages of the awful disease 
rabies or hydrophobia. It is doubtless true that the 
cry of ““mad dog” has created human panic since the 
times of primitive men. No sane person who has wit- 
nessed death from hydrophobia will willingly do so a 
second time, unless he is needed in muinistrations of 
assistance or mercy. For years Pasteur had studied 
the dreaded disease and performed experiments with 
rabbits and other animals in efforts to locate the causal 
organism and to find a preventive or cure. It almost 
belittles this gigantic task to go directly to results, 
omitting description of many fruitless efforts, false 
hopes roused in the man whose heart as well as mind 
was now devoted to his supreme task. However, one 
day, after many failures to locate any guiding arrow, 
Pasteur used for inoculation in a rabbit a piece of old 
and dry spinal-cord tissue previously taken from a rabbit 
that had died of rabies. He had previously oftentimes 


146 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


transmitted the disease by use of nerve tissue, but the 
diseases thus produced were violent and death- 
producing. This time, however, the desiccated nerve 
tissue produced a mild attack from which the rabbit 
recovered. Following this lead, a series of less and less 
dry nerve tissues were used to produce a cumulative 
series of mild attacks, after which the bite of a rabid 
animal failed to produce hydrophobia. 

At this juncture one of the most striking events of 
all science occurred. Frau Meister, of Alsace, had a 
boy, Joseph, who two days before had been bitten by a 
rabid dog. Such an attack as that shown by the four- 
teen bites upon the unfortunate boy had been previously 
regarded as meaning almost certain death. The mother 
had heard of Pasteur, and at once started to Paris with 
her boy. The treatment had not been given to any 
human being; it was not known whether results would 
be similar to those obtained in lower animals; it was not 
known what series or gradation of treatments would be 
necessary for human beings; it had been proved that 
the treatment could be applied to animals after a rabid 
bite, and that protection could be secured. Frau 
Meister was obdurately insistent. Pasteur’s advisers 
intimated that the boy’s death would be upon Pasteur if 
he refused to treat him and the mother absolved him 
from responsibility if the treatment were given. Against 
advice from his friends, Pasteur began the experiment 
upon the boy, shortening the periods between treat- 
ments in efforts to secure cumulative protective results. 
The ignorant but beautiful confidence of the mother 
and boy permitted them to sleep and rest between 


LOUIS PASTEUR 147 


treatments; but the highly intelligent understanding 
and tremendous responsibility and hope of Pasteur 
made sleep and rest almost impossible for him until the 
crisis had passed, and he felt sure that the boy’s life 
had been saved. 

Soon Pasteur institutes appeared in available centres 
throughout the civilized world, and to-day it is very 
rarely that a human being need die from hydrophobia. 
Superstitious and ignorant fear of hydrophobia has 
given place to the intelligent guidance of modern 
science. 

On Pasteur’s seventieth birthday (1892, three years 
before his death) delegates from the scientific societies 
and public bodies of the civilized world met in France, 
in the great theatre room of the Sorbonne. The band 
of the Republican Guard of France played the triumphal 
march. The President of the Republic was the escort 
as down the aisle came one of the greatest heroes and 
benefactors in human history. Gounod directed a 
choir which sang his Ave Maria. Coquelin recited 
verses written by him especially for this occasion. The 
Minister of Public Instruction among other things said: 


Who can now say how much human life owes to you and how much 
more it will owe you in the future? The day will come when an- 
other Lucretius will sing, in a new poem on Nature, the immortal 
Master whose genius engendered such benefits. 


Joseph Lister, when called upon said: 


Your researches upon fermentations have thrown a powerful light 
which has illuminated the baleful darkness of surgery and has 
changed the treatment of wounds from an uncertain and too often 


148 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


disastrous empirical affair into a sure beneficent scientific art. 
Thanks to you, surgery has undergone a complete revolution which 
has robbed it of its terrors, and has enlarged almost without limit 
its eficacious power. Medicine owes not less than surgery to your 
profound and philosophical studies. You have lifted the veil which 
had covered infectious diseases during the centuries; you have dis- 
covered and demonstrated their microbial nature. Thanks to your 
initiative and, in many cases, to your own special work, there are 
already a large number of these pernicious maladies of which we 
now know the causes. 

Then Pasteur rose and spoke quietly and feelingly of 
his hope that science would save men from their bodily 
ills; that men will be more useful when free from dis- 
ease. Then turning to the delegates he said: 

And you, delegates from other nations, bring me the deepest joy 
that can be felt by a man whose invincible belief is that Science and 
Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will 


unite, not to destroy, but to build, and that the future will belong 
to those who will have done most for suffering humanity. 


The foundations of the science which may remove 
from man all his bodily ills if only he will turn his mind 
to them long enough, with sufficient patience and un- 
selfishness—that is the achievement of Louis Pasteur. 
Human life is now much lengthened because of the work 
of Pasteur, by the fewothers of his time, and by the many 
others since who have been stimulated and whose work 
has been made possible by him. Those who know and 
do what modern health science teaches are the ones 
whose lives are lengthened. It is they who are of most 
worth to the world. A man at forty has just learned 
how to work. ‘To add ten or fifteen or twenty years to 
his life saves to the world a man who is equipped and 
ready. His added years may double his service to the 


LOUIS PASTEUR 149 


world. Surely in an age when great warriors are still 
extolled, it is supremely important for our young people 
to appreciate that true heroes help men to live and 
serve rather than teach them to vanquish and destroy 
their fellows. 


GuIDE To FuRTHER READING 


“The Life of Pasteur,” by R. Vallery Radot. Translated from 
the French by Mr. R. L. Devonshire. Doubleday, Page & Co., 
Garden City, N. Y. 484 pages, 1908. 

“The Influence of Pasteur on Medicinal Science.” Dodd, 
Mead & Company, New York. 77 pages, 1904. 

“Pasteur, The History of a Mind,” by Duclaux. Translated by 
Erwin F. Smith. W. B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia. 363 
pages, 1920. 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH 


By GeorcE E. Vincent, Pu.D. 
President of the Rockefeller Foundation, New York City 


F THE hygienic control of the world were put in the 
hands of some superman with scientific knowledge 
and authoritative powers it is possible to imagine 

the way in which he would organize his forces and carry 
out his task. First of all he would not rest content 
with the scientific resources in his possession, but would 
provide for continuous investigation in order to re- 
examine constantly the knowledge already acquired 
and to add new information. He would fit up well- 
equipped and competently manned centres for investi- 
gation. ‘These institutions he would place in strategic 
positions throughout the world in such a way as to 
bring the widest variety of diseases under constant 
scrutiny. He would further see to it that the staffs of 
these research centres were in constant communication 
so that duplication of effort would be avoided and the 
results secured in one place put quickly at the disposal 
of workers in all the other institutions. In this way he 
would organize medical research as a world activity, 
constantly recruiting his groups of investigators and 
producing steadily new knowledge about the nature, 
cure, and especially the prevention of the maladies 
which afflict mankind. 
150 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH 151 


In the second place, this hygienic force would effect 
an administrative health organization throughout the 
world. Each country would be subdivided into sani- 
tary districts, while the nations themselves would be 
brought into a unified administrative system under 
central control. Thus stationed throughout the world 
would be health officers with their technical experts and 
subordinates all organized into a hierarchy under single 
authoritative control. Under such a military régime 
sanitation, control of epidemics, regulation of individual 
conduct in the interests of health would be in force with 
all the efliciency which characterized the success of pre- 
ventive measures in Cuba and the Panama Canal Zone. 

In the third place, through such an organization as 
has been described, there would be centralization of 
vital statistics—accurate and trustworthy conclusions 
based upon the reports of competent diagnosticians per- 
forming their duties in an objective way uninfluenced 
by economic and social considerations. ‘These statistics 
constantly gathered and interpreted by experts, would 
guide the organization and conduct of health campaigns 
in various parts of the world to meet situations as they 
were revealed by the statistical data. The appearance 
of an epidemic would be instantly reported to head- 
quarters and orders would issue at once to apply meas- 
ures which would insure the prompt control of the 
threatened outbreak. Outposts and barriers against 
epidemics would be established and held in readiness for 
emergencies. Gradually the foci of diseases would be 
circumscribed until finally these sources of danger 
would be eliminated. 


152 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


In the fourth place, the guardian of the world’s health 
would not rest content with the negative control of 
disease. He would regard sanitation and epidemiology 
as only the first steps toward a positive campaign to be 
carried out through control of the diet, housing, exer- 
cise, and recreation of the world’s population. ‘This 
benevolent autocrat would see to it that children were 
well born and nourished and from their earliest days 
trained to hygienic habits. In this way he would, 
through the perfect obedience of millions to the dic- 
tation of wisdom and benevolence, produce a vigorous 
and healthy race. 

Of course, as fundamental to this entire programme 
the commanding officer would establish medical schools 
and training centres in which the officers and privates 
of his army of hygiene would be recruited and trained 
for their important tasks. Under his guidance medical 
schools would transfer their chief interest from the cure 
to the prevention of diseases. ‘The stress would be 
laid upon early diagnosis and upon preventive treat- 
ment, upon frequent medical examinations, upon sound 
habits of living, upon the importance of mental serenity 
and a stimulating social life. From such schools of 
medicine and hygiene would go out men and women 
apostles of the doctrine of prevention determined to 
keep people well and regarding the occurrence of 
disease among those under their charge as a serious 
reflection upon the vigilance and resourcefulness of the 
members of the profession. | 

The description of an arbitrary control of this kind 
is in itself sufficient to show how impossible and in- 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH 153 


tolerable such a régime would be. Local autonomy, 
nationalistic feeling, the absence of supermen, and 
human nature’s resentment of control imposed from 
without are a few of the many obstacles which would 
make it utterly impossible to bring about the hygienic 
solidarity of the world. But the outlining of an imagin- 
ary unifed system of control at least serves as a back- 
ground against which to observe influences which have 
been going on for a long time in the world, but which of 
late have gained greatly in definiteness of organization. 
In some sense, every one of the things which have been 
suggested as a part of an imaginary world organization 
is being to a degree accomplished. 

Thus there are more than 445 medical schools scat- 
tered throughout the world. They represent the in- 
fluence of three systems of medicine: the British, the 
Latin, and the German. ‘These systems have been dis- 
tributed in accordance with well-organized principles of 
national influence. The British system has prestige 
throughout the Empire, subject to modification espe- 
cially in Canada. French medicine prevails in the Latin 
countries of Europe and in Central and South America; 
while the German plan is largely followed in Scandi- 
navia, Austria, eastern Europe, in the Balkan regions, 
and in Japan. In the United States a combination of 
British and German methods has been gradually devel- 
oped with certain features which are not found in either 
of the two European systems. ‘The three national types 
are yielding to internal influences which may be counted 
upon to produce, not uniformity, but a more cosmo- 
politan ideal than at present exists anywhere in the 


154 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


world. In short, forces of intercourse and cooperation 
are approximating a world system more successfully 
than anything but the control by a superman could 
bring about. 

Moreover, institutes for medical research are found in 
many parts of the world. Of these the best known are 
the Pasteur Institute of Paris, the Rockefeller Institute 
of New York, the London and Liverpool Schools of 
Tropical Medicine, the Hongkong School of Tropical 
Medicine. Many other centres exist throughout the 
world. ‘These centres, through publications, migra- 
tions, and international congresses are kept in close com- 
munication so that knowledge of each other’s work is 
quickly disseminated. In a very true sense there is an 
informal and effective world organization for prosecu- 
tion of medical research. Many of the medical schools 
are an integral part of this system, making impor- 
tant contributions to what is a genuine international 
product. 

In the collection of vital statistics definite prog- 
ress toward world organization has been made. 
Through the Office International d’Hygiéne in Paris, 
forty nations are regularly exchanging information 
with respect to vital statistics. Uniform methods of 
reporting deaths have been agreed upon and are to a 
considerable degree being successfully carried out. 
The areas from which trustworthy and acceptable re- 
ports are made in various countries are being gradually 
extended. It is true that only a beginning has been 
made but these beginnings have sketched a programme 
of international codperation in the gathering and dis- 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH 155 


tribution of vital statistics which will inevitably be 
steadily elaborated during succeeding decades. 

Growth of health organizations in different countries 
is constantly recorded. ‘The leading nations of the 
world are giving increasing attention to health adminis- 
tration; administrative areas are being organized and 
trained sanitarians put in charge. Not only is this 
national organization going forward, but the nations 
are drawing closer together in their codperation for 
world health. The first European conference to con- 
sider health problems was heldin 1851. ‘Twelve nations 
were represented. Concerted measures against cholera, 
plague, and yellow fever were adopted. ‘Thereafter at 
intervals of a few years other congresses were called to 
insure better team-work in conformity with rapidly ad- 
vancing knowledge of preventive medicine. In 1902 
an International Sanitary Bureau was established in 
Washington by the Pan-American Union. Finally, in 
1908, a permanent International Office of Hygiene, 
which has already been mentioned, was established in 
Paris. 

The most significant development in this world 
movement is the recent creation under the League of 
Nations of a Health Organization which has the direct 
support of fifty-two nations and the sympathetic co- 
operation of the United States. The programme of 
the League’s Health Organization includes the gather- 
ing of vital statistics, prompt notification of epidemics, 
a standardizing of vaccines and sera, international con- 
ferences and exchanges of health officers, securing of 
better health conditions for sailors on shipboard and in 


156 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


ports, cooperation with League mandatories, with the 
Commission on Opium, and with the Labour Office. 

The fact that great epidemic diseases disregard na- 
tional boundaries forces upon nations the adoption of 
cooperative measures against the ravages of these 
diseases. The first congress in 1851 was called to con- 
sider ways of dealing with cholera, plague, and yellow 
fever. The most striking illustration of national 
cooperation was afforded in 1920 and 1921 by the special 
commission against typhus in eastern Europe. This 
campaign was organized under the auspices of the 
League of Nations and had the direct financial support 
of fourteen governments. A _ sanitary barrier was 
erected in eastern Europe and the march of the disease 
was halted. ‘There is every reason to expect that co- 
operation of this sort will become more frequent and 
that diseases which heretofore have flourished because 
they encountered only unorganized resistance will now 
face the united front of a world sanitary army. 

After public-health officers have done all that they 
can in the way of sanitation and control of contagious 
diseases, there remains a majority of diseases with which 
only the individual can deal. A large part of the prob- 
lem of public health resolves itself into the question of 
personal hygiene. Only by changing the health habits 
of millions can the level of national and world efficiency 
be raised. In attempting this task certain traits of 
human nature must be reckoned with. All the re- 
sources of modern education, publicity, and suggestion 
must be employed. Especially must the habits of 
children be formed while they are still in a plastic stage. 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH 157 


Thus attempts in popular education in personal hygiene 
are being made in many countries and by various 
methods. The movement is still in the stage of experi- 
ment and demonstration. There are some signs of 
definite accomplishment in this field, but much re- 
mains to be done in the way of testing the material and 
methods of instruction before the campaign can be 
pushed with complete conviction and hope of perma- 
nent success. But this is inevitable unless control from 
without is to be substituted for mere self-direction. No 
one advocates the course of compulsion except with 
respect to well-established conditions of contagious dis- 
ease which call for the exercise of the police power of 
the community in the interests of all. 

The essential task of training health officers and the 
various technical experts who form the staff of a modern 
health organization is being put upon a professional 
basis. The School of Hygiene and Public Health of 
Johns Hopkins University, the new School of Public 
Health of Harvard University, the School for Nurses of 
Yale University, the training centres at the University 
of Toronto and at London, Ontario, the new School of 
Hygiene which is being established in London under the 
auspices of the British Government, the Institutes of 
Hygiene at Prague and Warsaw, and many other in- 
stitutions of a similar sort are equipped to give a 
thorough professional training, both in the fundamental 
sciences which underlie modern hygiene and in the prac- 
tical application of scientific knowledge to the problems 
of control and administration in the field. Through a 
system of interchange of health officers being carried 


158 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


on by the Health Organization of the League of Nations, 
a spirit of international cooperation is being created in 
this individual and personal way; the knowledge of 
health procedures in one country is being put at the 
disposal of other nations. 

The direct codperation of governments is having an 
important bearing upon the growth of international 
hygiene. The leading governments furnish health 
officers in the ports of other countries so that valuable 
means of contact and codperation are established. 
What amounts to the appointment of attachés of 
hygiene is being brought about so that it is possible to 
look forward to a time in the early future when every 
country will have its sanitary representatives in other 
lands. Such a system cannot fail to increase in many 
ways the effectiveness of organization and activity in 
behalf of world health. 

Non-governmental health agencies are playing a 
significant part in the new hygienic movement. ‘The 
international Red Cross has for many years concerned 
itself with the health conditions of prisoners of war. 
With the organization of the League of Red Cross 
Societies in 1919, a new international voluntary agency 
was set up. A programme of this society includes as 
an important feature the promotion of public health 
measures in the different countries where the Red 
Cross Society has been established. The Rockefeller 
Foundation, through its subsidiaries, the International 
Health Board, the China Medical Board, and the Divi- 
sion of Medical Education, is carrying on work which, 
during recent years, has included items of cooperation 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH § 159 


and service in sixty of the governmental areas of the 
world. It has demonstrated on a large scale the possi- 
bilities of the control of hookworm disease and the use 
of such control measures as a means of educating whole 
populations in the matter of public health work. The 
International Health Board of the Foundation has also 
conducted a successful campaign which aims at the 
complete eradication of yellow fever. This has called 
for the codperation of Mexico, Central America, and 
several South American countries. The outcome is a 
striking proof of what can be accomplished when 
nations work together with complete confidence and 
good-will. 

Thus as we try to get a picture of what is going on to- 
day in the world in the interests of the health of all the 
nations, we see that there is something like an approxi- 
mation to the ideal system which a superman might 
conceivably try to set up. As compared with what re- 
mains to be accomplished, only an insignificant start 
has been made, but looked at from the standpoint of a 
century ago, really striking progress has already been 
achieved. In the last half century the scientific re- 
sources of modern medicine have been enormously 
enriched. ‘The causes of a great number of devastating 
diseases have .been discovered; the methods of con- 
trolling them have been worked out; medical education 
has been put upon a higher level; a beginning has been 
made in the training of expert sanitarians and an entire 
hygienic personnel. Organization of health administra- 
tion has been greatly increased in efficiency. The death 
rates in all the leading countries of the world have fallen 


160 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


in a most gratifying fashion. Beginnings have been 
made in the education of the public in the laws of per- 
sonal hygiene. International understandings and good- 
will have been promoted. He would be hopeful indeed 
who should at the present time see anything like a 
millennium of human brotherhood; but at any rate it is 
obvious that the tendencies now to be seen in the world 
toward codperation for health cannot fail to draw 
scientific men everywhere into closer comradeship. 
So much is clear gain. There is reason to hope that for 
a time at least the resources of science will be turned 
from the destruction of human life to the healing of the 
nations. 


GuIDE TO FuRTHER READING 


American Public Health Association: ‘Half Century of Public 
Health; Jubilee Historical Volume,” edited by Mazyck P. Ravenel. 
N. Y. Auth., 1921, 461 pages. 

“China and Modern Medicine. A Study in Medical Missionary 
Development,” by Harold Balme. London, 1921, 224 pages. 

“Progress of Public Health Work,” by Dr. J. H. Beard. 152 p. 
Reprint from Scient. Month., N. Y., Feb., 1922. 

“International Organization and Public Health,” by G. S. 
Buchanan. Lancet, Feb. 26, 1921, vol. 1, pages 415-520. 

“The International Mind in Medicine,” by Kendall Emerson. 
Boston Med. and Surgical Jour., June 15, 1922, pages 795-799. 

“Medical Education in the United States and Canada,” by 
A. Flexner. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- 
ing. Bull. No. 4, 1910. 346 pages. 

“Medical Education in Europe.” Carnegie Foundation for the 
Advancement of Teaching. Bull. No. 6, 1912. 357 pages. 

“The New Public Health,” by Dr. H. W. Hill. (Macmillan, 
N. Y.) 1918. 206 pages. 

“The Future of Medicine,” by Sir James Mackenzie. (Henry 
Frowde, Hodder and Stoughton, London.) 1919. 238 pages. 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH 161 


“The New Chivalry—Health.” Southern Sociological Congress, 
Houston, Texas. May 8-11, 1916, 555 pages. 

“Medical Research and Education,” by Drs. Richard M./ Pearce, 
Wm. H. Welch and others. Edited by J. McKeen Cattell. (The 
ee Press, N. Y.) 1913. 536 pages. (Science and Education, 
vol. 2. 

“The Health Officer,” by Frank Overton and Willard J. Denno. 
(W. B. Saunders Co.) 1919. 512 pages. 

The Red Cross and International Public Health. League of 
Red Cross Societies, Second Meeting of the General Council, Geneva, 
March 28-31, 1922, by Rocco Santoliquido. Documents, vol. 2, 
pages II5-125. 

The World’s Health. A monthly review published by the League 
of Red Cross Societies. 7 Rue Quentin Rouchart, Paris VIII, 


France. 


EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF MODERN 
BOTANICAL GARDENS 


By Georce T. Moore, Pu. D. 


Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo. 


P SHE cultivation of plants for their healing quali- 
ties by the monks of the middle ages appears to 
have been the beginning of the modern botanical 

garden, although these medieval gardens doubtless 

took their origin from others of greater antiquity. 

A most ingenious theory concerning the origin of 
botanical gardens was put forward by a Frenchman 
who claimed that during the 16th century designers of 
embroidery and lace in France sought inspiration from 
blooming plants. To meet this demand an enter- 
prising horticulturist opened a garden with conserva- 
tories in which he cultivated many strange and little- 
known varieties. Later this garden became crown 
property and medical students were admitted on condi- 
tion that they would not interfere with the designers 
of textiles and laces. Although the aesthetic study of 
plants must have appealed to those who visited public 
gardens, and even at the present day designers and 
makers of artificial flowers get many ideas from study- 
ing nature, it seems quite certain that botanical gardens 
were primarily created for the students of materia 
medica. 

162 


MODERN BOTANICAL GARDENS _ 163 


The educational value of a botanical garden did not 
develop much, if at all, prior to the middle of the 
17th century, when those at Bologna, Montpelier, 
Leyden, Paris, and Upsala became more or less note- 
worthy as aids to scientific teaching. The taste for 
ornamental and decorative plants had meanwhile 
been slowly growing and persons of wealth and influ- 
ence, desiring to cultivate rare and unusual species, 
began to employ men skilled in botanical knowledge to 
take charge of their gardens. The world was searched 
for new and rare plants which were brought back for 
cultivation in the botanical gardens of Europe, and 
many handsomely illustrated volumes describing these 
plants were published by the rich patrons of botany. 
These older gardens were essentially private institu- 
tions, but gradually a few of the existing establishments 
and a number of new ones were opened more or less to 
the public. 

Modern botanical gardens, therefore, have a number 
of functions which have not appeared simultaneously 
but have been a matter of gradual development. Be- 
ginning with the utilitarian idea, there have been added 
to this the aesthetic, the scientific, and the educational. 
Naturally these elements have been given different de- 
grees of prominence depending upon local conditions; 
but whether a garden be essentially scientific or mainly 
utilitarian, or combine all of the essential functions of 
a garden, it is clear that the educational features are 
receiving more and more emphasis. Formerly a public 
garden was a mere museum of living plants; at best a 
place for recreation and pleasure. Nowadays the at- 


1644 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


tempt is to have collections which, while appealing to 
the sense of the beautiful, will give definite information 
and instruction to the amateur as well as to the specialist. 

The modern botanical garden fails to serve the com- 
munity as it should if the school pupil as well as the 
advanced student is unable to learn much fromit. Mod- 
ern educators who are seeking to find improved methods 
of teaching are beginning to recognize the fact that 
gardens furnish some most important and unique op- 
portunities for imparting knowledge. Formerly books 
and travel were the chief sources of information to the 
general public; in these days of the phonograph, the 
radio, and the moving picture, visual education is taking 
a larger and larger place. Exhibits of plants native to 
countries being studied in geography may give a better 
idea of conditions in that country than anything short 
of an actual visit could accomplish. The growing of 
tropical fruits, spice and perfume plants, rice, cotton, 
sugar cane, coffee, tobacco, peanuts, and other economic 
plants, particularly if their peculiarities are pointed 
out by one familiar with their various characteristics, 
forms a most helpful adjunct to. modern educational 
practices. Nowhere can fundamental facts concerning 
heredity, selection, and breeding be so well demon- 
strated as in a garden; and an insight into physiology, 
morphology, and pathology may be easily gained when 
presented through the life of a plant. Most children 
are interested in gardens of one sort or another and 
through their desire to learn what to grow and how to 
grow it, as well as the kind of care which must be exer- 
cised in order to make a success, many important bits 


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MODERN BOTANICAL GARDENS _ 165 


of real knowledge, as well as much general information 
may be imparted. For this reason a botanical garden 
as an educational institution may be a much more 
helpful feature in a community than a zoological park 
or a museum, since it comes so close to everyday 
life. 

It is impossible to treat in detail the various kinds of 
exhibits and demonstrations prepared to impart knowl- 
edge to young persons. ‘The ease with which this may 
be done coupled with its recreational and pleasure- 
giving qualities, makes it desirable for many communi- 
ties to include in their educational systems a botanical 
garden of some kind. Not only should the rare 
“‘vegetable curiosities,” consisting of a sort of. botanical 
circus, be featured, but common things such as wild 
flowers, weeds, and farm crops must also be instruc- 
tively displayed. Accurate labels giving the most im- 
portant information about plants are a necessity, and 
by using different colours to indicate the country from 
which plants come or the uses to which they are put, 
definite facts and geographic interpretations are ab- 
sorbed almost unconsciously. When to the educational 
function is added the great humanizing power of a gar- 
den, and the recreational service which it is able to ren- 
der to the business man, the student and the plant lover, 
it becomes clear why so many thousands of citizens 
regularly visit gardens in cities which possess them. 


GuIDE TO FuRTHER READING 


“Botanical Gardens,” by N. L. Britton. Bull. Torr. Bot. Cl. 
23:331-345. 1896. 


166 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


“History and Functions of Botanical Gardens,’ by Arthur W. 
Hill. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 2:185-223. 1915. 
“The Missouri Botanical Garden,” by W. Trelease. Pop. Sci. 


Monthly, 62:193-221. 1903. 
Various articles relating to specific problems in botanical gardens, 


by George T. Moore, and others. Missouri Botanical Garden 
Bulletin, 1913-1923. 


THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
By Joun M. Cou ter, Pu.D. 


Professor of Botany, University of Chicago 


HE meaning of evolution is probably more mis- 

understood than any doctrine of science. The 

reason for it is that it has been discussed very 
freely by those who are not informed, and in this way 
much misinformation has been propagated. ‘The evolu- 
tion of the material world, called inorganic evolution, 
aroused wonder but not apprehension; but when or- 
ganic. evolution came into prominence hostility was 
aroused, because such evolution seemed to involve man. 
The general meaning of organic evolution is that the 
plant and animal kingdoms have developed in a con- 
tinuous, orderly way, under the guidance of natural 
laws, just as the solar system has evolved in obedience 
to natural laws. ‘There are at least three important 
reasons why an understanding of the doctrine of evolu- 
tion should be regarded as a necessary part of college 
training: 

1. It has revolutionized modern thought. Every 
subject to-day is being attacked on the basis of its 
evolution. Not only are inorganic and organic evolu- 
tion being considered, but also the evolution of language, 
of literature, of society, of government, of religion. In 
other words, it is a point of view which represents the 
atmosphere of modern investigation in every field. 

167 


168 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


2. It is persistently misunderstood. From the press, 
the lecture platform, and even the pulpit, one frequently 
receives amazing statements in reference to organic 
evolution. If it were made an essential feature of stu- 
dent training, there would be developed a propaganda 
of information instead of misinformation. 

3. It has revolutionized agriculture. The practical 
handling of plants and animals in the way of improving 
old forms and securing new ones, was made possible 
and definite when the laws of inheritance began to be 
uncovered through experimental work in evolution. 

In brief, the purpose of a course in organic evolution 
should be to give some appreciation of its meaning and 
methods, to furnish a check on rash and unfounded 
statements in reference to it, and to show how the study 
of evolution has led to enormously practical results. 


PERIODS IN THE History oF EVOLUTION 


There have been three distinct periods in the history 
of evolution, based upon the method of attack. ‘These 
three methods may be spoken of in general as specu- 
lation, observation and inference, and experimentation. 

1. SPECULATION.— [he idea of organic evolution is 
as old as our record of men’s thoughts, for all the old 
mythologies are full of it. No modern man, therefore, 
is responsible for the idea, although it is a common 
misconception to load this responsibility upon certain 
distinguished modern students of evolution. For ex- 
ample, the name of Darwin is so conspicuous in connec- 
tion with evolution that many seem to think that 
Darwinism and evolution are synonymous. Until 1790, 


EVOLUTION 169 


however, organic evolution was a pure speculation, with 
no basis of scientific work. In other words, it was based 
upon meditation rather than investigation, and was to 
be regarded as a philosophy rather than a science. It 
should be emphasized that the idea of evolution has 
always been in the mind of men. 

During the latter part of this period certain facts be- 
gan to be observed that made some thinking men con- 
clude that evolution might be a fact, and not merely a 
speculation. It will be helpful to note briefly, in his- 
torical succession, the kinds of facts that set these men 
to thinking, and that resulted in the second period in 
the history of evolution, when it became a science. 

In classifying plants and animals, which was the 
initial phase of biology, men rigidly defined the differ- 
ent species, the thought being that the different kinds 
had descended in unbroken succession “from the be- 
ginning,” whenever that may have been. When more 
extensive observations were made in the field, numer- 
ous intergrades began to be found. ‘The species, as 
defined, seemed to intergrade freely. In other words, 
the pigeon-hole arrangement, with rigid partitions, did 
not express the facts. It became evident that species 
had been defined by man rather than by nature. Some 
were distinct enough, but many intergraded. It ought 
to be realized that a species is the conception of man, 
and fluctuates just as do human opinions. Biologists 
learned, therefore, that species are human inventions, 
and intergrading suggested that one species might come 
from another, the intergrades marking the trail. 

_ The next observations suggesting that evolution 


170 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


might be a fact had to do with what was called the 
‘power of adaptation,” which we now call “responses.” 
It was observed that plants and animals respond to 
changes in environment, often in a striking way. I 
have seen what were regarded as two good species 
changed into one another by changing from a moist 
habitat to a dry one, or the reverse. ‘This ability to 
respond to changing conditions seemed to indicate that 
species are not so rigid and invariable as had been 
supposed. 

As technique developed, and the internal structures 
of plants and animals became known, it often happened 
that rudimentary structures were found, which never 
developed to a functioning stage, but which occurred 
fully developed in related forms. For example, it was 
found that in the developing parrot a set of embryo 
teeth begins, but never matures. ‘The inference was 
natural that these structures had been functional in the 
ancestors, but had been abandoned by some of their 
descendants. In these days, it has become the habit to 
call these rudimentary structures “vestiges.” Plants 
and animals are full of these vestiges. One illustration 
in the human body is the vermiform appendix. It 
seems safe to say that we are walking museums of 
antiquity. As technique developed still further, the 
embryology of plants and animals began to be studied 
in detail, the whole progress from egg to adult being 
observed. In very many cases, during this progress, 
glimpses of fleeting structures and resemblances were ob- 
tained, which had disappeared when the adult stage was 
reached, but which related the form to other species. 


EVOLUTION 171 


After this succession of facts, there came a revelation 
which convinced more men that evolution is a fact 
than any evidence which had preceded. ‘The geologists 
had begun to uncover that wonderful succession of 
plants and animals from the earliest geological periods 
to the present time. They saw in the oldest periods 
forms unlike any now existing; they saw gradual changes 
with each succeeding horizon; they saw a steady ap- 
proach to forms like those of to-day, until by insensible 
gradations the present flora and fauna were ushered in. 
This geological record, becoming continuously more 
detailed in its interpretation, set men to thinking 
seriously. 

Finally, after all this evidence was in, men began to 
look around them and to realize what they had been 
doing for centuries in domesticating animals and plants. 
They had been bringing them from the wild state and 
changing them so much by the methods of culture that 
in many cases the wild originals could not be recognized. 
Most of our cultivated plants, if found in nature as- 
sociating with their wild originals, would be regarded 
as extremely distinct species. 

In the presence of such an array of facts, is it to be 
wondered at that certain men began the serious, scienti- 
fic study of evolution? As a result, the second period 
in the history of evolution was ushered in, and evolution 
became a science. ; 

2. OBSERVATION AND INFERENCE.—In time this 
period extends from 1790 to 1900. It is characterized 
by the appearance of a succession of explanations of 
evolution. It is important to remember that the men 


172 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


who offered these explanations are not responsible for 
the idea of evolution, but merely attempted to explain 
the fact of evolution. They were explainers rather 
than authors. It is also important to realize the 
method used. It may be called the method of compari- 
son and inference. Plant and animal forms were ob- 
served, and resemblances were assumed to indicate re- 
lationship through descent. It was not demonstration, 
but inference based on observation. Darwin carried 
the method to the limit of its possibilities, observing not 
a small range of forms, but observing through several 
years a world-wide range of forms, in connection with 
the famous voyage of the Beagle. His caution is also 
indicated by the fact that his observations were under 
consideration for some twenty years before his con- 
clusions were published. His facts were so undoubted, 
and his case so well put, that his explanation of evolu- 
tion attracted immediate attention and really fought the 
battle of evolution. ‘This is what made his explanation 
an epoch in the history of biological science. 

This period in the history of evolution, which may be 
thought of as the mediaeval period, is marked by the 
appearance of three conspicuous explanations. ‘There 
is no need to define these explanations in detail. The 
explanation which ushered in the period was proposed 
simultaneously and independently by Goethe of Ger- 
many, St. Hilaire of France, and Erasmus Darwin of 
England, in 1790. Observations of responses to 
changed environment, led to the conclusion that en- 
vironment is the direct cause of change, actually mould- 
ing forms. This evolutionary factor, therefore, is 


EVOLUTION 173 


entirely external to animal or plant. It was a natural 
first explanation, but it was too superficial, and en- 
vironment as a direct cause of evolution soon passed 
into the historical background. 

In 1801, Lamarck, in a series of lectures, announced 
his explanation, calling it the theory of “appetency.” 
This was really the first explanation with a body of 
doctrine, and hence Lamarck has often been called 
the “founder of organic evolution.” ‘The term “‘appe- 
tency,’ however, has been abandoned, and its real mean- 
ing expressed by the “‘effect of use and disuse.” With 
Lamarck, environment is not the direct cause of the 
change, but the occasion for the change. ‘The cause is 
the striving, the effort to do something that had become 
necessary. [hus organs would become developed as a 
consequence of some change in environment calling 
them into use; and conversely, organs would become 
gradually aborted as a consequence of some change in 
environment that eliminated their use. This explana- 
tion rests absolutely upon the inheritance of acquired 
characters, meaning characters not inherited by the 
possessor, but acquired during the lifetime of the in- 
dividual. 

In 1858 the epoch-making explanation by Charles 
Darwin was announced, an explanation which was dom- 
minant for about fifty years. It is too familiar to need 
explanation, but I wish to call attention to the steps by 
which it developed in Darwin’s mind. ‘These steps have 
been spoken of as five facts and one inference, and the in- 
ference appeared so natural that there was no escaping 
it. The five facts in their logical sequence are the ratio 


174 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


of increase, the equilibrium of species, variation, and 
artificial selection, from which natural selection was the 
inevitable inference. In brief, it claims that nature 
selects among variations, that the method of selection 
is competition, that the result is the destruction of the 
relatively unfit, or as Spencer put it, the “survival of 
the fittest.” In brief, the theory is really an explana- 
tion of what is called adaptation. 

As facts multiplied, the current explanations of 
evolution were found to be inadequate to explain some 
of them. This led to a general misunderstanding of 
the situation by the uninformed public. For example, 
more intensive study developed the fact that Darwin’s 
explanation does not always explain. His name is so 
identified with evolution in public thought, that this 
criticism of the universal application of his conclusions 
by certain scientific men was taken to mean that the 
theory of evolution was being abandoned. ‘The real 
situation is that every proposed explanation may prove 
inadequate, and yet the fact of evolution remains to be 
explained. 

All of the explanations offered are partial explanations 
which simply means that no one of them applies to all 
the facts. We need them all and more besides. So far 
from being abandoned, evolution is the basis of all bio- 
logical work to-day. 

The method of comparison and inference continued 
until the beginning of the present century. Then came 
a new epoch in the history of evolution. 

3. EXPERIMENTATION.—I[his may be called the 
modern period, in contrast with the mediaeval and 


EVOLUTION 175 


ancient periods. It was ushered in by the work of 
DeVries, who introduced the experimental study of 
evolution, and announced his explanation of evolution 
by means of mutation. The problem was to discover 
whether one species actually produces another one. It 
had been inferred that it does, but inference is not 
demonstration. By means of carefully controlled pedi- 
gree cultures, DeVries discovered a plant in the actual 
performance of producing occasionally a new form 
among its numerous progeny. ‘This form bred true and 
preserved its distinctive characters; in other words, it 
was a new species, or at least a different species from 
its parent. Many such species have now been ob- 
served originating in this way, both in plants and 
animals. ‘That one species can produce another one is 
no longer inferred, but demonstrated, and demonstrated 
repeatedly. There is no longer any doubt, therefore, 
that evolution is a fact. It is quite a different question 
whether the proposed explanations are adequate. 

This outline of methods and results in one phase of 
one science is illustrative of all scientific investigation. 
It is uncovering facts by experimental demonstration, 
and is taking less account of inferences. In the field 
of evolution, when inferences were the only results, it 
was natural to extend inference to the evolution of the 
plant and animal kingdoms, and this involved the origin 
of man. In these days, there is no such attempt, for 
experimental demonstration of the evolution of the 
whole series of organic forms, culminating in man, 1s 
clearly impossible. Biologists, therefore, are no longer 
concerned with the whole story of evolution, but only 


176 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


in discovering experimentally how one species may 
produce another one. ‘The fact of evolution is estab- 
lished, but the whole story of evolution must remain an 
inference. 

PRESENT Status oF Evo.tution.—Only a _ very 
general statement is possible, since a full statement 
would involve an extensive discussion. The experi- 
mental study of evolution has led to the development 
of the field of genetics, a subject which has grown with 
remarkable rapidity. It is genetics which must un- 
cover the machinery of evolution, which of course is 
fundamentally a matter of inheritance. The facts 
thus far uncovered indicate complexities which were 
not realized before, but which should have been anti- 
cipated, for inheritance with its resulting evolution 
represents the most complex biological situation imag- 
inable. 

The present status of evolution as a body of doctrine 
may be said to be in a state of flux, out of which the 
truth will emerge eventually. Any meeting of biolo- 
gists at which evolution is discussed will disclose con- 
siderable diversity of opinion. It is evident, of course, 
that whatever produces variation furnishes a basis for 
evolution. But what produces variation? Environ- 
ment is one factor, direct or indirect; sex is another 
factor, especially when strains are crossed; and still 
other factors might be cited. Any factor claimed to in- 
duce variation must stand the test of genetics, with 
its cytological background. Variations, however pro- 
duced, are of two general kinds, as indicated by be- 
havior, namely, the so-called continuous variation of 


EVOLUTION 177 


Darwin’s explanation, and the so-called discontinuous 
variations of De Vries’s explanation. The differences 
of opinion have to do with the method of variation pro- 
duction, that is, variation that may result in a new 
species. 

After variation is secured, there is no question as to 
the function of selection. It is merely a statement of 
fact to say that some variations persist and some are 
eliminated. It is a very different matter to claim that 
only the “fit” persist. In some way the selection is 
made, and the selection factors may be quite variable. 
In general, it may be said that there is no serious differ- 
ence of opinion that evolution is based on variation and 
subsequent selection. It is only a matter of detail to 
determine the exact factors. 

There is a much more serious problem of evolution, 
however, which is still baffling. The variations ob- 
served, which result in new species, as tested by genetics, 
and for which the cytological machinery has been ob- 
served, produce species either laterally or retrogres- 
sively; that is, species of the same phylogenetic level, 
or of declining rank. ‘There is as yet no adequate ex- 
planation of progressive evolution, the advance from 
one great phylum to another. Progressive evolution is 
a very evident fact, as shown by many an impressive 
series disclosed by the geological records, and also by 
our inferred lines of phylogeny. ‘The theory of ortho- 
genesis is often cited as an attempt to explain progres- 
sive evolution. Orthogenesis is not an explanation, but 
a statement of the fact of progressive evolution, which 
still awaits explanation. ‘The multiplication of species 


178 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


is within the reach of experimental study as to causes 
and methods, and the results are leading to conclusions 
that may vary with the investigator, but which will be 
checked up by further investigation. The phylogenetic 
advance of species, however, is still within the region of 
inference. It is something like the difference between 
the tracks in a switchyard and the main line. We 
have succeeded in investigating the switching, but the 
through trains are still baffling. 


PRAcTICAL RESULTS 


The experimental study of evolution, leading to the 
development of the science of genetics, resulting in in- 
creasing knowledge of the laws of inheritance, has led to 
practical results which the public in general do not ap- 
preciate. I wish to refer to two of these by way of 
illustration. 

1. [HE REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE.—It seems a 
far cry from speculations concerning evolution to a 
revolution in agriculture, but the continuity is un- 
broken. Speculation led to observation; observation 
led to experimentation; experimentation resulted in 
discovering the laws of inheritance; and the application 
of these laws has enabled us to handle plants and ani- | 
mals in a way that was never dreamed of before. It is 
a good illustration of the fact that there is no sharp 
dividing line between what is called pure science and 
applied science, for pure science may prove to be enor- 
mously practical. 

A brief statement will illustrate the agricultural re- 
sults in the application of our knowledge of inheritance. 


EVOLUTION 179 


It had become evident, for example, that for various 
reasons the ratio of increase in population was much 
greater than the ratio of increase in food production. 
The statement was made that during the ten years 
preceding the great war our population had increased 
20 per cent. and our food production about 1 per 
cent. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this state- 
ment, but it illustrates the situation. It was certainly 
an alarming outlook. Under these circumstances, 
plant crops began to be studied from the standpoint 
of genetics, and plant breeding became a science. 

The lack of crop production arose chiefly from three 
causes, namely, lack of adaptation of crops to environ- 
ment, destruction by drought, and destruction by 
disease. [he same races were being cultivated every- 
where, and only in certain places was the maximum re- 
sult obtained. A study of races of crop plants through- 
out the world, and of the environment necessary for 
maximum yield, resulted in such an adjustment of 
crops to conditions that total food production was enor- 
mously increased. The problem of drought is being 
rapidly solved by the discovery or development of 
drought resistant races, not only insuring against loss 
from this cause, but also enormously increasing the 
possible area of cultivation. ‘The problem of disease 
has been attacked-in the same way, and disease resistant 
races of most of the important crops have been devel- 
oped, insuring against this loss. As a result, food pro- 
duction is now beginning to overtake population, and 
we may thank the persistent study of evolution for the 
result. 


180 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT.— 
This is a result of such fundamental importance that it 
must be considered, for it is revolutionizing the mental 
attitude of the human race. Its relation to the study 
of evolution may not be clear, but it was the study of 
evolution that revolutionized science and put it upon 
its present basis. ‘The scientific spirit means a certain 
attitude of mind, which may be described best by speak- 
ing of some of its characteristics. 

(1) It is the spirit of inquiry.—In our experience we 
encounter a vast body of established belief in reference 
to all important subjects, such as society, government, 
education, religion, etc. It is well if our encounter be 
only objective, for it is generally true, and a more dan- 
gerous fact, that we find ourselves cherishing a large 
body of belief, often called hereditary, but really the re- 
sult of early association. Nothing seems more evident 
than that all this established belief which we encounter 
belongs to two categories: (1) the priceless result of 
generations of experience, and (2) heirloom rubbish. 
Unfortunately, the discovery of the latter has often 
resulted in weakening the hold of the former. The 
young inquirer, or the non-logical inquirer, is in danger 
of condemning all the conclusions of the past when one 
is found wanting. 

Toward this whole body of established belief the 
scientific attitude of mind is one of unprejudiced inquiry. 
Tt is not the spirit of iconoclasm, as some would be- 
lieve; but an examination of the foundations of belief. 
The spirit which resents inquiry into any belief, how- 
ever cherished, is the narrow spirit of dogmatism; and 


EVOLUTION 181 


is as far removed from the true scientific attitude as the 
shallow-minded rejection of all established beliefs. The 
childhood of the race accumulated much which its 
manhood is compelled to lay aside, and the world needs 
a thorough going over of its stock in trade. Such work 
cannot be done all at once, or once for all, for it must be 
a gradual sloughing off as the spirit of inquiry becomes 
more generally diffused. 

It must be evident that this spirit is diametrically op- 
posed to intolerance, and that it can find no common 
ground with those who confidently afirm that the pres- 
ent organization of society is as good as it can be; that 
the present republics of the world represent the highest 
possible expression of man in reference to government; 
that the past has discovered all that is best in education; 
that the mission of religion is to conserve the past 
rather than to grow into the future. ‘This is not the 
spirit of unrest, of discomfort, but the evidence of a 
mind whose every avenue is open to the approach of 
truth from every direction. Like the tree, it is rooted 
and grounded in all the eternal truths that the past has 
revealed, but is stretching out its branches and ever- 
renewed foliage to the air and sunshine, and taking into 
its life the forces of to-day. 

In his essay on Intellect, Emerson says: 


God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. 
Take which you please, you can never have both. Between these 
as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose 
predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the 
first political party he meets, most likely his father’s. He gets 
rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth. 
He in whom the love of truth predominates will keep himself aloof 


182 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


from all moorings, and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and 
recognize all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his 
being is swung. He submits to the inconvenience of suspense and 
imperfect opinion, but he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, 
and respects the highest law of his being. 


Dogmatism still finds many victims, for education 
has not yet touched the majority; but every day the 
possible victims are becoming fewer in number, and 
those who seek to lead opinion must presently abandon 
the method of bare assertion. The factors in this 
general intellectual progress are perhaps too subtle and 
interwoven to analyze with certainty, but conspicuous 
among them is certainly the development of scientific 
training. For fear of being misunderstood, I hasten 
to say that this beneficent result of scientific training 
does not come to all those who cultivate it, any more 
than is the Christ-like character developed in all those 
who profess Christianity. I regret to say that even 
some who bear great names in science have been as 
dogmatic as the most rampant theologian. But the 
dogmatic scientist and theologian are not to be taken 
as examples of the “‘ peaceable fruits of righteousness,’ 
for the general ameliorating influence of religion and of 
science is none the less apparent. 

(2) The scientific spirit demands a real connection be- 
tween an effect and its claimed cause.—It is in the labora- 
tory that one first really appreciates how many factors 
must be taken into the count in considering any result, 
and what an element of uncertainty an unknown factor 
introduces. In the very simplest cases, where we have 
approximated certainty in the manipulation of factors 


EVOLUTION 183 


to produce results, there is still lurking an element of 
chance, which simply means an unknown and hence 
uncontrolled factor. Even when the factors are well in 
hand and we can combine them with reasonable cer- 
tainty that the result will appear, we may be entirely 
wrong in our conclusion as to what in the combination 
has produced the result. 

For example, we have been changing the forms of 
certain plants at will by supplying in their nutrition 
varying combinations of certain substances. By manip- 
ulating the proportions of these substances we _ pro- 
duce the expected result. It was perhaps natural to 
conclude that the chemical nature of these particular 
substances produce the result, and our prescription was 
narrowed down to certain substances. Now, however, 
it is discovered that the results are not due to the chemi- 
cal nature of these substances, but to a particular physi- 
cal condition which is developed by their combination, 
a condition which may be developed by the combination 
of other substances as well; so that our prescription is 
much enlarged. In this operation we are thus freed 
from slavery to particular substances, and must look 
only to the development of a particular physical con- 
dition. 

It seems to me that there is a broad application 
here. In education, we are in danger of slavery to 
subjects. Having observed that certain ones may be 
used to produce certain results, we prescribe them as 
essential to the process, without taking into account 
the possibility that other subjects may produce similar 
results. 


184 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


In religion, we are in danger of formulating some 
specific line of conduct as essential to the result, and of 
condemning those who do not adhere to it. ‘This is the 
essence of formalism. ‘That there may be many lines of 
approach to a given result, if that result be a general 
condition, is a hard lesson for mankind to learn. 

If it is so difficult to get at the real factors of a simple 
result in the laboratory, and still more difficult to inter- 
pret the significance of factors when found, in what 
condition must we be in reference to the immensely 
more difficult and subtle problems which confront us in 
social organization, government, education, and reli- 
gion; especially when it is added that the vast majority 
of those who have offered answers to these problems 
have had no conception of the difficulties involved in 
reaching absolute truth. It is evident that in the vast 
problems which concern human welfare in general, we 
are but groping our way, and that our answers as yet 
are largely empirical. The proper effect of such 
Knowledge is not despair, but a receptive mind. In my 
judgment, therefore, the diffusion of the scientific 
spirit will make it more and more difficult for any one 
with a nostrum to get a hearing. 

The prevailing belief among the untrained is that any 
result may be explained by some single factor operating 
as a cause. ‘They seem to have no conception of the 
fact that the cause of every result is made up of a com- 
bination of interacting factors, often in numbers and 
combinations that are absolutely bewildering to con- 
template. An enthusiast discovers some one thing 
which he regards, and which perhaps all unprejudiced 


EVOLUTION 185 


and right-thinking people regard as an evil in society or 
in government, and straightway this explains for him 
the whole of our present unhappy condition. This 
particular tare must be rooted up, and rooted up im- 
mediately without any thought as to the possible 
destruction of the plants we must cultivate. The ab- 
normal tissue must be destroyed without reference to 
the fact that the method of destruction may debilitate 
the normal tissue. 

This habit of considering only one factor, when per- — 
haps scores are involved, indicates a very primitive and 
untrained condition of mind. In the youth of science 
it often threw its votaries into hostile camps, each 
proclaiming rival factors, when the problem really 
demanded all the factors they had and many more 
besides. 

It is fortunate when the leaders of public sentiment 
have gotten hold of one real factor. They may overdo 
it, and work damage by insisting upon some special 
form of action on account of it, but so far as it goes it is 
the truth. It is more apt to be the case, however, that 
the factor claimed holds no relation whatever to the 
result. This is where political demagoguery gets in its 
most unrighteous work, and preys upon the gullibility 
of the untrained; and is the soil in which the noxious 
weeds of destructive radicalism, charlatanism, and re- 
ligious cant flourish. 

It is to such blindness that scientific training is 
bringing a little glimmer of light, and when the world 
one day really opens its eyes, and it is well if it open 
them gradually, the old things will have passed away. 


186 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


(3) The scientific spirit keeps one close to the facts.— 
One of the hardest things in my teaching experience 
has been to check the tendency of many students to use 
one fact as a starting point for a flight of fancy that 
is simply prodigious. Such a tendency is corrected, of 
course, when the facts accumulate somewhat, and flight 
in one direction is checked by a pull in some other di- 
rection; but most of us have this tendency, and the 
majority are so unhampered by facts that flight is free. 
This exercise is beautiful and invigorating if it is recog- 
nized to be what it really is, a flight of fancy; but if 
it results in a system of belief it is a deception. 

There seems to be abroad a notion that one may start 
with a single, well-attested fact, and by some logical 
machinery construct an elaborate system and reach an 
authentic conclusion; much as the world has imagined 
for more than a century that Cuvier could do if a single 
bone were furnished him. ‘The result is bad, even 
though the fact have an unclouded title; but it too often 
happens that great superstructures have been reared on 
a fact which is claimed rather than demonstrated. 

We are not called upon to construct a theory of the 
universe upon every well-attested fact, and the sooner 
this is learned the more time will be saved and the 
more functional will the observing powers remain. 
Facts are like stepping stones; so long as one can get a 
reasonably close series of them, he can make progress in 
a given direction; but when he steps beyond them he 
flounders. As one travels away from a fact, its signi- 
ficance in any conclusion becomes more and more at- 
tenuated, until presently the vanishing point is reached, 


EVOLUTION 187 


like the rays of light from a candle. A fact is really 
influential only in its own immediate vicinity; but 
the whole structure of many a system lies in the region 
beyond the vanishing point. 

Such “vain imaginings” are delightfully seductive 
to many people, whose life and conduct are even shaped 
by them. I have been amazed at the large develop- 
ment of this phase of emotional insanity, commonly 
masquerading under the name of “subtle thinking.” 
Perhaps the name is expressive enough, if it means 
thinking without any material for thought. One of 
the great dangers of our educational system is in laying 
special stress on training. ‘There is danger of setting 
to work a mental machine without giving it suitable 
material upon which it may operate, and it reacts upon 
itself, resulting in a sort of mental chaos. An active 
mind turned in upon itself, without any valuable ob- 
jective material, can never reach any very valuable 
results. 

It may not be that science is the only agency, apart 
from common sense, which is correcting this tendency; 
but it certainly teaches most impressively, by object 
lessons which are concrete and hence easiest to grasp, 
that it is dangerous to stray very far from the facts, and 
that the farther one strays away the more dangerous it 
becomes, and almost inevitably leads to self-deception. 

In conclusion, it may be said that the attitude of 
mind represented by the scientific spirit must bring in- 
dependence in observation and conclusion, some idea 
as to what an exact statement is, and some conception 
of what constitutes proof. 


188 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


Any field, whether religion or science, is to be esti- 
mated by its ideals, even though its occasional per- 
formance may be open to criticism. The ideals of 
science are (1) to understand nature, that the boun- 
daries of human knowledge may be extended, and man 
may live in an ever-widening perspective; (2) to apply 
this knowledge to the service of man, that his life may 
be fuller of opportunity; and (3) to use the method of 
science in training man, so that he may solve his prob- 
lems and not be their victim. 

I find nothing more helpful to the stinent and leader 
of men than a clear appreciation of the working of 
evolution as exemplified in plants and animals. Evo- 
lution teaches that progress is gradual; that a better is 
progress toward the best; that sudden radical changes 
are not to be expected; that the future has its roots in the 
present. It teaches that revolutions may be very slow. 
It forbids unreasonable demands upon the individual 
or_upon society, and discountenances the usual type 
of reformer. It shows that there have been no universal 
catastrophes and new creations, but that the present has 
gradually evolved from the past, and that the future 
will appear in the same gradual way. Furthermore, it 
shows that advance in a certain direction may not be 
uniform, for there are periods of apparent recession, as 
well as those of more rapid advance. ‘The results are 
only apparent in the large view over long periods of 
time, when the tossing back and forth of surface waves 
disappears, and the steady advance of the slow-moving 
current becomes apparent. 

Perhaps most important of all, it teaches that man 


EVOLUTION 189 


is a poor interpreter of individual events, and has no 
means of deciding whether they contribute to advance 
or not. Hence it must lead to cautious and charitable 
judgments; but at the same time it supplies a strong 
ground of confidence that there must be eventual 
progress. Some of the minor details of evolution may 
be useful to the pessimist, but its whole sweep justifies 
the broadest optimism. 


GUIDE TO FuRTHER READING 


‘Variation, Heredity, and Evolution,” by R. H. Lock. 

“Heredity and Environment,” by E. G. Conklin. (Princeton 
Univ. Press.) 1916. 

“Genetics,” by H. E. Walter. (Macmillan.) 1913. 

“Fundamentals of Plant Breeding,” by J. M. Coulter. (Apple- 
ton.) I9I4. 

“Readings in Evolution, Genetics, and Eugenics,” by H. H. 
Newman. (University of Chicago Press.) 


OUR FIGHT AGAINST INSECTS 


By L. O. Howarp, Pu.D. 


Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, 
U. S. Department of Agriculture 


P AHE civilized part of the human race is just 
awakening to the fact that the future welfare and 
happiness of humanity depends to a considerable 

extent upon its success in the fight against the insects. 

They possess characteristics which permit them to live 

under all sorts of conditions and their work as a class 

brings them into direct conflict with the interests of 
humanity in multitudes of ways, many of which are 
entirely unsuspected by people in general and many 
others are still undoubtedly undiscovered. Their small 
size has often obscured their destructive powers, but in 
their very insignificance in size lies much of the danger. 

Insects damage practically all of the farmer’s crops, 
but it is not generally known that year after year at 
least a tenth part of all that is artificially grown is con- 
sumed by them. Not only do they eat the crops, but 
they eat clothing in city and country and they damage 
stored foods of all kinds; they burrow into the timbers 
of our buildings, they eat books, and wooden and leather 
implements. ‘They accommodate themselves to new 
conditions as they arise. Telegraph lines, compara- 
tively new in the history of human civilization have 


190 


OUR FIGHT AGAINST INSECTS I9I 


come into the insects’ view, and they eat the poles and 
even burrow into the insulating lead of the wire coils. 
A still later step in man’s advance, the airplane, also in- 
volves a fight against the insects, for the wood which is 
used in their propellers is also damaged by certain 
species. 

Most domestic animals suffer greatly from their at- 
tacks. Almost every kind of animal that is domesti- 
cated and used by human beings has its serious insect 
enemies, and man himself is far from immune. Aside 
from the species that sting him and annoy him, there 
are other forms that carry disease. The house fly 
carries at least thirty different kinds of disease and 
parasites. Mosquitoes of different kinds are responsible 
for distribution of malaria and yellow fever, dengue 
fever, and filariasis. ‘The tsetse fly carries the sleeping 
sickness which has decimated large areas in Africa, the 
tick carries the germs of Rocky Mountain fever, and 
there are many other insects that carry various dis- 
eases, some doubtless unknown. 

A few years ago we should have said that this was a 
fairly comprehensive summary of the possibilities of in- 
sect damage, but it has recently been discovered that 
they are responsible for the carriage of many of the most 
fatal diseases of cultivated plants just as they carry 
the diseases of animals and man. ‘They are carriers of 
fatal diseases to many of the most important crops and 
to fight the diseases we must fight the insect carriers and 
control them. 

Country after country has organized its entomo- 
logical service, following the lead of the United States. 


192 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


which was the first country to begin to study insects in 
a really competent way from the economic point of view. 
This action on the part of our own country 1s not in the 
least surprising, since as agriculture spread intensively 
over its hitherto uncultivated territory and the so- 
called balance of nature was upset in a rapid and most 
imperative manner, many native species took readily to 
the new food planted for them in enormous fields and 
multiplied to an incredible extent. 

And in this development, with the bringing over of 
products of different kinds, including plants from the 
old countries, their insect enemies were brought with 
them, and finding themselves in a region where the 
summers or breeding seasons were longer and where the 
cultivation was upon a tremendous scale, the insects 
took cheerfully to the new environment and multiplied 
to an extent which had not been possible in the small 
fields and shorter summers of Europe. 

Beginning in a small way and really not until after 
the completion of the Civil War, the good results 
reached by the labours of a few entomologists, notably 
Walsh and Le Baron in Illinois and Riley in Missouni, 
gained public attention. With the establishment of 
the state agricultural experiment stations in the late 
"eighties, activity in the work against insects was multi- 
plied in this country. From that time to the present 
the increases in the state and government appropria- 
tions have been rapid. Capable young men have 
studied in the universities and colleges of agriculture in 
increasing numbers until at the present time the Bureau 
of Entomology of the Department of Agriculture at 


OUR FIGHT AGAINST INSECTS 193 


Washington has an annual budget amounting to more 
than a million and a half dollars and employs a small 
army of trained workers. Each state also has its corps 
of entomologists. In California there is a competent 
entomologist for each county of the State. 

Other countries have followed, and France and Italy 
particularly have shown themselves to be keenly alive 
to the importance of this work. Although the entomo- 
logical problems of the British Isles are comparatively 
less exacting than in the United States, Great Britain is 
developing many competent workers in her vast colo- 
nial possessions in many of which conditions are much 
like those in the United States. In London there is an 
Imperial Bureau of Entomology which is in constant 
touch with the official entomologists of the different 
dominions and colonies and assists them in many im- 
portant ways. ’ 

While it must seem to many people that insects are 
more abundant and more injurious now than ever be- 
fore, a large part of this opinion is due to our better 
appreciation of conditions and to the fact that as the 
population increases and the competition for existence 
grows keener the losses brought about by the insects 
are sooner noticed and more grievously realized. ‘The 
entomologist, when attacking an insect problem, first 
attempts to learn all he can about the intimate life 
history of the destructive species which engages his 
attention. This is usually slow work and is usually 
prosecuted while the entomologist at the same time is 
learning the efficacy of spraying. Indeed, spraying is 
practical both with and without knowledge of its effects. 


194 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


In other cases the cultural practices are changed in 
efforts to affect the life of injurious insects. Or, as in 
the case of the California white scale and the Australian 
ladybird, the entomologist attempts to use the natural 
enemies of insects in his warfare. 

The importation of the Australian ladybird into 
California in the late ’eighties to kill off the white scale 
which threatened the extinction of the orange and lemon 
growing industries was a great accomplishment in itself 
and saved the country many millions of dollars. It is 
of especial significance, however, in that it pointed out 
the possibility of the utilization of the natural enemies 
of destructive insects, particularly those accidentally 
imported from one country into another, in such a way 
that it has been followed with other successes in this 
country and elsewhere. 

We need only refer to the gipsy moth and the brown- 
tail moth to realize the importance of these kinds of 
investigation cited above. It has been possible to re- 
tard the spread of the gipsy moth for many years and 
practically to confine it to New England largely by the 
development of spraying methods which render possible 
the spraying of large forested areas. During a number 
of years parasites of different kinds were imported from 
all parts of Europe and from Japan. Several species 
of these parasites have become established in this coun- 
try, and it is due largely to their work that the brown- 
tail moth has become greatly reduced in number and 
that the area over which it had spread has become 
greatly restricted. And it is also due to these parasites, 
at least in part, that in the Boston metropolitan dis- 


OUR FIGHT AGAINST INSECTS 195 


trict and in other New England towns the gipsy moth 
has been so reduced in numbers that it is rather rarely 
to be seen. Moreover, the long and careful study of 
the gipsy moth has shown that with a certain kind of 
forest management its destructive work can largely 
be avoided; that is, by the gradual elimination of its 
preferred food plants, such as oak, from the mixed 
forests. 

With the cotton boll-weevil, a species which is at the 
present time much in the public eye, the parasite 
method of control has been unsuccessful. Where the 
weevil has occupied a territory for some years, some 
of the native parasites of allied weevils have attacked it 
but never in competent numbers. ‘The early studies of 
the life history and habits of the weevil which were made 
in Texas in the early part of the century soon indicated 
means by which the damage could be greatly lessened 
by certain farming methods, notably early planting, 
pushing the crop, picking it early, and destroying the old 
plants at as early a date as possible. ‘These reeommen- 
dations were repeatedly made, but the southern planters 
as a rule did not adopt them, and the weevil spread year 
after year until now practically the whole cotton belt 
is infested. In the meantime, however, a method of 
control has been found, in the way of dusting with 
calcium arsenate, which can be used with profit on good 
land, and another method has recently been announced 
by the Florida State Plant Board by which cotton can 
profitably be grown on poor land in that State, the 
Florida method being cheaper than the one just men- 
tioned. The dusting process will be made simpler and 


196 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


cheaper as time goes on, and there is a good chance that 
the airplane may be used in community dusting to great 
advantage. 

The ravages of the pine bark-beetles in the far north- 
western forests in past years have caused enormous 
loss. Some people have said that this loss has been as 
great as that from forest fires. “These beetles have been 
carefully studied from all points of view by Dr. A. D. 
Hopkins and his associates, and it has resulted that 
when an epidemic of these beetles has gained a start it 
is now possible, by felling only a certain percentage of 
the infested trees, to arrest the plague, while the ex- 
pense of the operation is largely borne by the value of 
the felled trees. ‘This, however, has to be done at a 
certain time of the year, namely in the month of April, 
and the trees must be marked by trained scouts who 
,explore the forests during the previous autumn and 
winter. A clean-up of this kind has just been made in 
southern Oregon and northern California by codpera- 
tive work of the Interior Department, the Forest Ser- 
vice, the Bureau of Entomology, and private owners, 
the operations being directed by a trained entomolo- 
gist. 

At the present time more than 140 distinct projects 
are being investigated by the federal bureau, and these 
projects involve possibly five hundred of the species of 
insects most injurious to crops, domestic animals, 
stored foods, forest products, shade trees, and ornamen- 
tal plants. Itis safe to say that some form of remedial 
treatment has been found for almost every markedly 
injurious insect in the United States; but continued 





Spraying for gypsy moth on forest trees. High power spray pump being 
used 


U0}IOD UO [IAVIM [JO 10J sultAvidg 





OUR FIGHT AGAINST INSECTS 197 


efforts are being made to find something more effective, 
or cheaper or simpler. 

In addition to the large projects mentioned in pre- 
ceding paragraphs, many striking things have been ac- 
complished. ‘The pear thrips, which at one time threat- 
ened the extinction of the fruit industry on the Pacific 
coast, is no longer feared; two serious pests of the clover 
seed crop can now be handled by slight variations in 
the cropping methods; sprays and spraying machinery 
have been developed which can be used successfully 
against practically all leaf-feeding species; the fumiga- 
tion of nursery stock and of warehouses has been per- 
fected; such injurious species as the onion thrips, the 
grape-berry moth, the alfalfa weevil, the tobacco horn 
worm, and many others of recent prominence can now 
be controlled. 

The two outstanding problems at present before the 
country are the control of the European corn-borer, 
which at present exists in portions of New England, 
New York, and Ohio, and of the Japanese beetle which 
is at present confined to an area in New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania. Both of these insects bid fair to extend 
their range greatly and to damage the corn crop and, 
in the case of the Japanese beetle, to damage the or- 
chards to an extent which cannot be predicted but 
which promises enormous loss. Pending the develop- 
ment of more satisfactory means of control, efforts are 
being made to prevent these insects from rapid spread. 

The fight calls for many more trained entomologists 
and the expenditure of much larger sums than are at 
present available. 


198 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


GuImweE To FurTHER READING © 


* Agricultural Entomology,” by Herbert Osborn. Lea & Febiger. 
Philadelphia, 1916. 

“Entomology with Special Reference to its Ecological Aspects,” 
by J. W. Folsom. Third revised edition. P. Blakiston’s Son & Co. 
Philadelphia, 1922. 

“Tnjurious Insects,” by W. C. O’Kane. The Macmillan Co. 
New York, 1912. 

“Insect Pests of Farm, Garden, and Orchard,” by E. D. Sander- 
son. Second edition, revised and enlarged. John Wiley & Sons. 
New York, 1921. 

“Practical Information on the Scolytid Beetles of North American 
Forests. I. Barkbeetles of the Genus Dendroctonus,” by A. D. 
Hopkins. U.S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Entomology 
Bulletin No. 83, Part I. Washington, Government Printing Office, 
1909. 

“The Importation into the United States of the Parasites of the 
Gipsy Moth and the Brown-Tail Moth; A Report of Progress, 
with some Consideration of Previous and Concurrent Efforts of 
This Kind,” by L. O. Howard and W. F. Fiske. U.S. Department 
of Agriculture Bureau of Entomology Bulletin No. 91. Washington, 
Government Printing Office, 1911. 

“The Plum Curculio,” by A. L. Quaintance and E. L. Jenne. 
U. S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Entomology Bulletin 
No. 103. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1912. 

“Mexican Cotton-Boll Weevil,” by W. D. Hunter and W. D. 
Pierce. Senate Document No. 305, 62d Congress, 2d Session. 
Washington, Government Printing Office, 1912. 

“Life History of the Codling Moth in the Grand Valley of 
Colorado,” by E. H. Siegler and H. K. Plank, in coéperation with 
the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station. U.S. Department 
of Agriculture Bulletin No. 932. Washington, Government Print- 
ing Office, 1921. 

“Information for Fruit Growers about Insecticides, Spraying 
Apparatus, and Important Insect Pests,” by A. L. Quaintance and 
E. H. Siegler. U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers’ Bulletin 
No. 908. Revised reprint. Washington, Government Printing 
Office, 1920. 


INSECT SOCIOLOGY 


By VERNON KeELtoacce, M.S. 
Secretary of National Research Council, Washington, D.C. 


HAT may be called our personal relations to 
each other, resulting in various degrees and 
types of social organization, constitute a sub- 
ject of particular interest to the students of man and 
his life. If insects could see each other as we see our- 
selves—maybe they can—the students among them 
would also have a lively interest in their own personal 
relationships. These insect relationships may even 
have some special interest to us, because they attain 
a peculiarly high degree of specialization, perhaps be- 
cause there are so many more kinds of insects than 
there are of any other kind of animals—indeed, than 
there are of all other kinds of animals put together. 
Because of these many insect kinds there is an espe- 
cially keen competition and struggle for existence among 
them, and all kinds of adaptations and shifts for a living 
are carried to extremes. Social organization is but an 
adaptation for successful living. So the study of insect 
sociology is but a study of a biological phenomenon. 
That is also true, fundamentally, of human sociology. 
There are individualists among insect kinds, insects 
that set up no special relations with other kinds except 
those of general competition for food and a place in the 
199 


200 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


sun, and whose individuals have no special social re- 
lations with other individuals of the same kind. The 
butterflies are good examples of these individualistic 
insects. Their specialized associations are more with 
the flowers than with other insects even of their same 
kind. However, there are a few species of gregarious 
butterflies whose individuals come together occasionally 
in large swarms for some reason not well understood. 
The familiar large reddish-brown monarch or milkweed 
butterfly (anosia archippus) is such a gregarious butter- 
fly. I have seen tall Monterey Pine trees on Point 
Pinos near Monterey, California, simply covered by 
thousands of these conspicuous butterflies, hanging to 
the branches and to each other in long festoons. ‘This 
butterfly species has, too, the habit of migrating 
occasionally in immense swarms. 

‘ SoctaL BeEs.—Such gregariousness is exhibited also 
by certain mining bees which sometimes make their 
nest-burrows, a single burrow for each mother bee, in 
large numbers close together in some clay bank. Other 
kinds of mining bees carry this nesting association a 
step farther, in that several mother bees will combine to 
dig a common vertical burrow and then each will build 
a short side tunnel branching off from the common en- 
trance tunnel for its own eggs and the stored food for 
the larva which are to hatch from them later. 

The next step in this progress of the bees toward a 
social life, at least a family social life, is shown by the 
bumble-bees. With all the bumble-bee species a few 
fertilized fertile females or “‘queens,” produced in the 
autumn, go over the winter in concealment under 


INSECT SOCIOLOGY 201 


stones or in other convenient hiding places, and come 
out in the spring, each to found then a family colony or 
community. Finding a deserted field-mouse’s nest or 
some natural small hole or crevice in the ground, the 
queen brings to it a small mass of flower pollen and 
nectar and lays a few eggs on this food mass. As the 
eggs hatch the issuing grubs (larvz) begin eating the 
stored food and do this in such a way as to form for each 
a little irregular cell, in which, when finished with their 
feeding, they pupate and from which they finally issue 
as full-fledged worker (infertile female) bumble-bees. 

These workers now bring more mixed pollen and 
nectar, the queen lays more eggs from which new 
workers are produced, and this process continues 
through the summer until there is a large colony (or 
family) of bees. In the autumn some males and fe- 
males are produced, which fly out and find mates, the 
old quéen and workers die, and the mated females 
(now “queens’’) hide themselves to pass over the 
winter and come out in the next spring to found new 
family communities. 

This is the way also in which the social wasps, the 
hornets and yellowjackets, found their family communi- 
ties which live in large wood-pulp paper nests in the 
ground or hanging from branches or the eaves of houses 
and out-buildings. Each queen wasp, coming out 
from her winter hiding place, makes a little paper 
‘queen nest,” composed of a few interior cells enclosed 
in one or two layers of wood-pulp paper which she makes 
by biting off and chewing up bits of old wood. In the 
cells of this queen nest eggs are laid by the queen from 


. 


202 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


which soon hatch wasp grubs that are fed by her with 
chewed-up insects until the grubs pupate. After a few 
days they issue as worker wasps (infertile females), 
which immediately enlarge the nest, and make more 
cells in which the queen lays more eggs. The grubs 
hatching from these eggs are fed by the workers, and by 
repeating this performance the family grows by the end 
of the summer into a community of many hundreds of 
active wasps. But in the autumn, after males and 
females have been produced to mate and provide fertil- 
ized females (queens) to start new families in the next 
spring, the old queen and workers die and the com- 
munity breaks up. 

The honey-bees take a great step forward, for their 
communities do not regularly break up each year, but 
go on continuously for an indefinite period occasionally 
budding off new communities (‘“‘swarming”’). Each 
community, too, may, and in the course of time al- 
ways does, contain individuals produced by different 
queens, for whenever new queens are produced, which 
happens each year, it is sometimes the old queen that 
goes out with the swarm, leaving the new queen to 
produce new individuals in the hive. 

There is, too, in the honey-bee community much more 
differentiation as regards the work done in the com- 
munal home than in the social wasp and bumble-bee 
communities, and this work is much more varied in 
character. At any given time in the honey-bee com- 
munity some workers will be acting as nurses for the 
larval bees, some as pollen and nectar gatherers, some 
as wax-makers and comb-builders, some as cleaners, 


INSECT SOCIOLOGY 203 


some as ventilators, and some as guards at the en- 
trance of the hive. The queen, on the other hand, never 
does any work at all except to lay eggs. The drones 
simply act as consorts for the queens. The founding 
of a new community by the swarming away of a new 
(or the old) queen with several thousand workers is very 
different from the establishing of new wasp or bumble- 
bee communities, in which an unaided queen does all 
the work necessary to get the community started, 
making a beginning nest herself and caring for the first 
brood of young. 

There are two other kinds of communal insects, 
namely the termites, or “white ants,” with a number of 
different species mostly limited to the tropics and semi- 
tropics, and the true ants, with a great many species, 
occurring abundantly all over the world. ‘The true ants 
have often been called the most successful and, because 
of their high structural and economic specialization, 
the “highest” insects. Both the termites and the ants 
have more different “‘castes,” or kinds of individuals, 
belonging to a species than the social wasps and bees, 
which have only three castes, that is, males (drones) 
fertile females (queens) and infertile females (workers). 

The termites have usually two and sometimes three 
kinds of workers, namely, minim and major workers 
and soldiers, and they have, besides, both “‘comple- 
mentary” or reserve males and females in addition to 
the regular males and queens. ‘These complementary 
forms can replace the regular males and queens in cases 
of emergency. 

The true ants also have varying numbers of castes and 


204 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD | 


exhibit an extraordinary degree of variety and special- 
ization in economic organization. Some kinds are 
agriculturalists, and collect and store up seeds, some 
are hunters and marauders and travel about in large 
armies, some make slaves of other ants, some care for 
plant lice and scale-insects, which secrete honey dew— 
a favourite food of the ants—not only to the extent of 
protecting these helpless “‘ant cattle’ from predaceous 
insect enemies but even to the extent of taking care of 
their eggs and putting the newly hatched young on 
proper plants for their nourishment. 

There is a well-known little brown ant common in 
the cornfields of the Mississippi Valley which collects 
the eggs of the corn-root plant-louse, laid in the autumn 
in the soil, carries them into its nests and protects 
them through the winter. In the spring these plant- 
louse eggs hatch before the corn has been planted and 
there are no corn roots yet for the plant-lice to feed on, 
so the ants place the delicate little plant-louse babies 
on the roots of an early weed, called pigeon grass, that 
grows in the cornfields. ‘Then when the corn is planted 
and the corn roots are developed the ants carry the 
plant-lice from the pigeon-grass roots to the corn 
roots. 

Why this interest on the part of the ants in the plant- 
lice? Because the plant-lice secrete, while they are 
sucking sap from the corn roots, a plentiful supply of 
that honey dew which is so favourite a food of the ants. 
Thus through this interesting social relation between 
the ants and the plant-lice, these latter get protected 
and cared for and the former get a welcome supply of 


INSECT SOCIOLOGY 205 


food. This is an excellent example of what the natural- 
ists call helpful symbiosis, meaning the living together 
of two different kinds of animals (or plants, or of animals 
and plants) to the mutual advantage of both kinds. 

There are many examples of this symbiotic associa- 
tion that are well-known to naturalists. Various species 
of hermit crabs always have a growth of hydroid 
polyps on the front upper part of the shell which serves 
them as a movable house. If these polyp colonies are 
removed the crabs do not rest until they have found 
other colonies which they dislodge from the rocks to 
which they are attached and plant on their shells. By 
this arrangement the polyps, ordinarily fixed in one 
place, are carried about by the crabs and in this way 
are aided in finding food. They probably get some of 
this food by seizing loose bits of the small animals 
seized and torn up by the crabs in their own feeding. 
The crabs, for their part, gain a certain protection from 
enemies by the presence of the polyps which have 
stinging tentacles that dangle down over the head of the 
crab, that make things uncomfortable for any moving 
sea animals looking for crab-meat. 

Among the coral reefs of the South Seas there lives 
an enormous kind of sea anemone or polyp. Indivi- 
duals of this great polyp measure two feet across the 
disk when fully expanded. In the interior, or stomach 
cavity, which communicates freely with the outside by 
means of the large mouth opening at the free end of the 
polyp, there may often be found a small fish (Amphi- 
prion percula). ‘That this fish is purposely in the gas- 
tral cavity of the polyp is proved by the fact that when 


206 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


it is dislodged it invariably returns to its singular 
lodging place. The fish is brightly coloured, being of 
a brilliant vermilion hue with three broad white cross- 
bands. The discoverer of this pe- 
culiar habit suggests that there 
are mutual benefits to fish and 
polyp from this habit. ‘The fish, 
being conspicuous, is liable to at- 
tacks, which it escapes by a rapid 
retreat into the sea anemone; its 
enemies in hot pursuit blunder 
against the outspread tentacles of 
the anemone and are at once nar- 
cotized by the “thread cells” shot 
out in innumerable 
showers from the ten- 
tacles, and afterward 
drawn into the stom- 
ach of the anemone 
and digested. 

There are more 
than one thousand 
species of insects, in- 
— cluding various cock- 
Underground nest of the roaches, beetles, flies, 

bumblebee . . 
etc., that live in 
ants’ nests in various kinds and degrees of symbiotic 
association with their ant hosts. In some cases this 
symbiosis takes on a very highly specialized form. 
For example Wheeler (the foremost student of ants and 
an entirely reliable observer) has worked out the follow- 






. py aust y, 
SY / Nala 











































I 





INSECT SOCIOLOGY 207 


ing extraordinary symbiotic relation between the red- 
brown ant, Myrmuica brevinodes, and the smaller Lepto- 
thorax emersoni. The little Leptothorax ants live in the 
Myrmica nests, building one or more chambers with en- 
trances from the Myrmica galleries, so narrow that the 
large Myrmicas cannot get through them. When need- 
ing food the Leptothorax workers come into the Myr- 
mica galleries and chambers and, climbing on the backs 
of the Myrmica workers, proceed to lick the face and 
the back of the head of each host. A Myrmica thus 
treated, says Wheeler, 


paused, as if spellbound by this shampooing and occasionally folded 
its antennae as if in sensuous enjoyment. The Leptothorax after 
licking the Myrmica’s pate, moved its head round to the side and 
began to lick the cheeks, mandibles, and labium of the Myrmica. 
Such ardent osculation was not bestowed in vain, for a minute drop 
of liquid—evidently some of the recently imbibed sugar-water— 
appeared on the Myrmica’s lower lip and was promptly lapped up 
by the Leptothorax. The latter then dismounted, ran to another 
Myrmica, climbed on its back, and repeated the very same perform- 
ance. Again it took toll and passed on to still another Myrmica. 
On looking about in the nest I observed that nearly all the Lepto- 
thorax workers were similarly employed. 


Wheeler believes that the Lepiothorax get food only in 
this way. ‘They feed their queen and larve by regurgi- 
tation. The Myrmicas seem not to resent at all the 
presence of their Leptothorax guests, and indeed may 
derive some benefit from the constant cleansing licking 
of their bodies by the shampooers. But the Lepto- 
thorax workers are careful to keep their queen and young 
in a separate chamber, not accessible to their hosts. 
This is probably the part of wisdom, as the thoughtless 


208 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


habit of eating any conveniently accessible pupae of 
another species 1s widespread among ants. 

Finally there is another widespread type of social re- 
lationship in the life of insects, and that is the relation- 
ship of parasite to host, or parasitism. ‘Thousands of 
insect kinds live exclusively as parasites on other in- 
sects, and in many cases a very high degree of specializa- 
tion in this relation has been developed. One of the 
most familiar forms of this relation is shown by the 
many various ichneumon flies which lay their eggs on 
or in the bodies of the caterpillars (larve) of various 
moths and butterflies. When the ichneumon grubs 
hatch from these eggs they burrow about in the body 
of the caterpillar, feeding on its tissues but avoiding 
till the last the tissues and organs especially necessary 
for the life of the caterpillar. So the caterpillar moves 
about, feeding on the leaves of its food plant, while the 
ichneumon grubs grow and develop inside of it. By 
the time these grubs are full grown the caterpillar dies 
or may just be able to change into a chrysalid, from 
which issues, however, not a butterfly or moth but a 
number of ichneumon flies. 

It is undoubtedly true that the most effective checks 
against the too terrible increase in numbers of various 
serious insect pests of our orchard and field crops are 
their natural insect parasites. A considerable number 
of our worst insect pests have come to this country by 
one means or another from other countries, and in many 
of these cases they have come unaccompanied by their 
parasites. Under these circumstances the insect pest 
has been able to increase so rapidly in this country as 


INSECT SOCIOLOGY 209 


to threaten to wipe out some important American wild 
or domesticated food plant or flower. In several such 
cases entomologists have visited the native country of 
the insect pest, found its natural parasites and brought 
them to this country, where they have been released 
among their hosts and have soon increased to such 
numbers as to be a remedy for the pest. 

Thus we find among insects brilliant examples of a 
number of phases of social relationships which are 


Blas > sos in G ep, = 


ae (eet bie gin ae 
ns oi 






































ef) } 





4 t HH] AF «ie a o 
bea wat {Ji ral I 
bai fal cit | | 


Honey-ants about three times natural size, taken from ground about the 
roots of pine trees 


familiar to us in human life. These relationships are 
accompanied, in the insects, by a good deal of struc- 
tural modification of individuals for the sake of accom- 
plishing special functions which is a phenomenon that 
occurs in but slight degree among human beings. 
We devise and use different tools and machines to equip 
different individuals for different kinds of work. But 
the results are similar in the two groups. 

Some of the phases of insect sociology have been 
developed and specialized far beyond the condition 
attained in human life. The communal life of the 


210 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


honey-bee, for example, goes to an extreme hardly 
dreamed of yet by man as possible to him. If he did 
dream of it, it would be a bad dream. The worker 
honey-bees literally kill themselves working for the 
community. [he summer foragers fly back and forth 
between hive and the flowers from which they bring 
pollen and nectar until they can fly no more. They 
often fall dead with their loads at the very entrance to 
the hive. They have no children of their own; the 
royal mother produces all the children; they take care 
of them. ‘The males do nothing but act as royal con- 
sorts in the summer and then they die or are killed by 
the workers, as useless individuals, when winter comes 
on. The queen never works. She simply lays eggs. 
And soon. Not a kind of social organization we want, 
but a successful one, biologically. 

The insects go in strongly for parasitism, also a bio- 
logically successful way of making a living. But we try 
to discourage it in human society. Some of the ants 
do nothing but fight and rob. ‘They have even given 
up caring for their own young. ‘They enslave other 
ants to act as nurses and to collect food for the whole 
community. Other ants convert some of their com- 
munity members into living honey-jars, which stuff 
themselves with honey until their stomachs are so full 
and their bodies so swollen that they can hardly move 
and simply lie in a gallery or room in the ant nest ready 
to give up some of their honey by regurgitation to the 
active workers who come and tap them with their 
antenne. 

Insect sociology is interesting, but most of its teach- 


INSECT SOCIOLOGY 211 


ing to us is that, however successful biologically it may 
be for insects, it is not the kind of sociology we want for 
ourselves. Differentiation of labour and specialization 
of social relationships may be advisable for us up to a 
certain point; beyond that they are highly inadvisable. 
Let us not too literally follow the familiar injunction 
which instructs us to learn from the ant. ‘To imitate 
his industry cannot lead us wrong; to imitate his ex- 
treme communism would be to make depersonalized 
and de-individualized automatons out of us. 


GuIDE TO FURTHER READING 


“American Insects,” by Vernon Kellogg. (Henry Holt & Co.) 
Second edition 1908. A comprehensive account of the insects of 
North America with classification, structure, general habits, and 
special adaptations. 

“Ants, Their Structure, Development, and Behaviour,” by 
William Morton Wheeler. (Lemcke.) 1910. The best book yet 
published about ants. 

“The Life of the Bee,” by Maurice Maeterlinck. (Dodd, Mead 
& Co., New York.) 1902. A poetical but fairly accurate account 
of the life of honey-bees. 

“Social Life in he Insect World,” by J. H. Fabre. (Century Co., 
New York.) 1912. This, together with other books by Fabre about 
insect life, are full of interesting observations and are delightfully 
written. 

“The Psychic Life of Insects,” by E. L. Bouvier (trans. by L. O. 
Howard). (Century Co.) 1922. A keenly analytic account of in- 
sect instincts. 


HOW THE FORESTS FEED THE CLOUDS 
By RapuaeEt Zon, F. E. 


Forest Economist, United States Forest Service 


OR a long time it has been accepted without any 

question that all the vapour that is condensed 

in the form of rain or snow over the land surface 
is furnished by the evaporation of water from the 
oceans. ‘The part which vapour from the ocean plays 
in the precipitation over the land has been greatly exag- 
gerated. A noted European meteorologist, Professor 
Bruckner, has computed the amount of water evapo- 
rated from the ocean surface and the land surface, and 
the amount of water which is returned to the ocean and 
the land in the form of precipitation. ‘The balance 
sheet of the circulation of water on the earth’s surface 
is shown in the accompanying illustration. The regions 
tributary to oceans are capable of supplying seven 
ninths of the precipitation by evaporation from their 
own areas. ‘The moisture which is carried by the winds 
into the interior of vast continents, coming thousands of 
miles from the oceans, is almost exclusively due to con- 
tinental vapours and not to evaporation from the ocean. 
Bruckner’s figures for the entire earth’s surface are 
corroborated also by study of specific drainage areas. 
The most interesting study in this direction is that by 
Professors Francis N. Nipher and George A. Lindsay on 


212 


Ae ay OWUl Wwoyy Aq Yo UdATS 91INISTOUL jo saanuenb as1P| jO 4[NSo1 eB Se S}SITOF IDAO SUIULIOF Spnoy-) “Lt ‘Oly 














inent 


f the conti 


interior o 


Fig. 2. The clouds formed over the forests are driven by the prevailing winds into the 


HOW FORESTS FEED CLOUDS 213 


the rainfall of the State of Missouri and the discharge 
of the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Mo., and Car- 
rollton, La.* 

ForEST THE GREATEST EVAPORATOR OF WATER.— 
What are the sources from which the evaporation on 
land is the greatest? ‘The evaporation from a moist 
bare soil is on the whole greater than from a water sur- 
face, especially during the warm season of the year when 
the surface of the soil is heated. A soil with a living 
vegetative cover loses moisture, both through direct 
evaporation and through absorption by its vegetation, 
much faster than bare, moist soil and still more than 
free water surface. The more developed the vegetative 
cover, the faster is moisture extracted from the soil and 
given off into the air. The forest in this respect is the 
greatest desiccator of water in the ground. Numerous 
experiments in Europe in the level and slightly hilly 
forest regions have shown that the forest, on account 
of its excessive transpiration, consumes more moisture, 
all other conditions being equal, than a similar area 
bare of vegetation or covered with some herbaceous 
vegetation. [he amount of water consumed by forests 
is nearly equal to the total annual precipitation. In 
cold and humid regions it is somewhat below this 
amount and in warm and dry regions it is above it. 
The ground water table under forests was found in- 
variably to be lower than in the adjoining open fields. 


*Francis E. Nipher: “Report on Missouri Rainfall, with Averages for 
Ten Years ending December, 1887.”’ Transactions of the Academy of Science 
of St. Louis, Vol. V, p. 383. Geo. A. Lindsay: “The Annual Rainfall and 
Temperature of the United States.”” Transactions of the Academy of Science 
of St. Louis, June, 1912. 


214. SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


This enormous amount of moisture given off into the 
air by the forest, which may be compared to clouds of 
exhaust steam thrown into the atmosphere, must play 
an important part in the economy of nature and de- 
servedly earns for the forests the name of the “oceans 
of the continent.” ; 

Winp PERIODICITY AND PReEciIpiTaT1Ion.—In the 
eastern part of the North American continent east of 
the rooth meridian the winds during the winter and 
partly in the fall and in the early spring come from the 
west and northwest. These prevailing winds bring 
cold and comparatively dry air from the interior of the 
continent. In summer the prevailing winds are from 
the southeast in Texas, and farther north and east they 
come from the south and southwest. ‘There is a most 
intimate relation between the prevailing southerly 
winds and precipitation in the eastern half of the 
United States. It is during the summer period, when 
the entire eastern half of the United States is under 
the influence of the southerly winds, that most of the 
precipitation falls over it. On the plains east of the 
Rocky Mountains the summer rainfall forms from three 
fourths to four fifths of that of the entire year. In 
winter, with the change in the direction of the wind, 
there is a radical change in precipitation. 

The periodicity of the wind direction and its relation 
to precipitation over the eastern half of the United 
States is well illustrated on the two maps. ‘The arrows 
indicate the direction of the prevailing winds, and the 
lines and figures show the mean precipitation for the 
months of July and January. The map for the month 


HOW FORESTS FEED CLOUDS 2155 


of July is typical for the summer period and the one for 
the month of January is typical for the winter period. 
The data represent more than twenty years of continu- 
ous records. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE Facts.—The three facts 
just discussed, namely, that vegetation from land con- 
tributes more to the precipitation over land than 
evaporation from the ocean, that forests evaporate 
more water than free water surface or any other vege- 
tation, and that transpiration of the eastern half of the 
United States is intimately connected with the pre- 
vailing south wind, throw an entirely new light on the 
relationship between the forests of the coastal plain and 
the Southern Appalachians and the humidity of the 
central states and the prairie region. 

The central portion of the United States is distinctly 
a continental region, particularly the prairie region, 
which suffers from lack of precipitation. On the other 
hand, large areas in the south and southeast because 
of large swamps, suffer from too much humidity, which 
is caused not only by excessive precipitation but 
also by deficient evaporation. We have, therefore, 
two extremes in the eastern half of the United States: 
(1) in the states adjoining the Atlantic Ocean and the 
Gulf of Mexico, there is an excess of moisture on the 
ground, both on account of excessive precipitation and 
slight evaporation; (2) in the vast interior of the Central 
United States, on the other hand, there is a deficiency 
of moisture both on account of scant precipitation and 
of the intense evaporation. Is there not some con- 
nection between these two extremes! Is it not possible 


216 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


that changes which take place in one part of this vast 
region may exert some influence on the condition of the 
other? We have seen that in the central states in 
summer the prevailing westerly and northwesterly 
winds give way to southerly and southeasterly winds. 
In other words, in the summer the central states are 
under the influence of moist winds just at the time when 


‘ 
bs 
iy ane hts Mk 
PRECIPITATION SHOWN BY 
LINES AND FIGURES 


WIND SHOWN BY ARROWS i” es 





WIND DIRECTION AND MEAN PRECIPITATION FOR THE MONTH OF JANUARY 


the evaporation 1s the greatest and the forest vegetation 
is especially active. It seems, therefore, that the 
amount of moisture evaporated within the more moist 
region of the United States can influence the conditions 
of humidity, not only in the states close to the ocean, 
but also in the region into which the prevailing moist 
winds flow. The more moisture there is evaporated 
from the ground in the southern and southeastern 


HOW FORESTS FEED CLOUDS O17. 


portions of the United States, the moister must be the 
air in the central states and the more precipitation 
must fall there. 

The central interior region of the United States is 
the battleground of two titanic forces, of which one is 
harmful and the other beneficial. The beneficial force 
takes its origin in the Gulf of Mexico and the adjoining 


Ps _ ; 






-f 
PRECIPITATION SHOWN BY 
LINES AND FIGURES 


WIND SHOWN BY ARROWS 







WIND DIRECTION AND MEAN PRECIPITATION FOR THE MONTH OF JULY 


ocean, the harmful in the interior of the contintent and 
the Rocky Mountain region. ‘The central states and 
the prairie region are geographically at the point where 
the battle between the two forces is fiercest and the 
victory is now on the one side and now on the other, 
being dependent on the cold and humid and the warm 
and dry climatic cycles as well as upon the seasons of the 
year. When the humid southerly winds extend their 


218 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


influence far into the interior of the country and over- 
power the dry continental winds, the central states 
and prairie region, the granary of the United States, 
produce large crops. When the dry winds overpower 
the humid southerly winds there are drouths and crop 
failures. 

The southerly winds on their way from the Gulf of 
Mexico do not meet any mechanical obstacles. Since 
the Appalachian Mountains, running in a northeasterly 
and southwesterly direction, do not hamper their pas- 
sage, they are capable of penetrating far into the in- 
terior of the country and, therefore, determine the 
amount of precipitation even in such states as Min- 
nesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. 
The moisture-laden winds from the Gulf, as soon as 
they reach the land and encounter irregularities, are 
cooled and begin to lose part of their moisture in the 
form of precipitation. As long as the air currents are 
saturated with moisture the slightest cooling or ir- 
regularity of the land that causes them to rise will cause 
precipitation. But as they move inland and become 
drier, the remaining moisture is given off with difficulty 
and precipitation decreases. The sooner the humid 
air currents in the passage over land are drained of the 
moisture, the shorter is the distance from the ocean 
over which abundant precipitation falls; the longer the 
moisture is retained in the air currents, the farther into 
the interior will it be carried and the larger will be the 
area over which precipitation will be distributed. 

If precipitation over land depended only on the 
amount of water directly brought by the prevailing 


HOW FORESTS FEED CLOUDS 219 


humid winds from the ocean, the land would be pretty 
arid and the rainfall would be confined to only a narrow 
belt close to the ocean. Fortunately, not all the water 
that is precipitated is lost from the air currents; a part 
runs off into the rivers or percolates into the ground, 
but a large part of it is again evaporated into the 
atmosphere. The moisture-laden currents, therefore, 


mut CIRCULATION OF WATER ON EARTHS SURFACE 


DPINCHES IN 
ee ahs ee OF WATER LAWS 
ee ee LVAPORATION FROM OCEANS 
(141,312,600 SQ.MILES) 


id PRECIPITATION OVER OCEANS 








ooo TE 


0.0 Fes EVAPORATION FROM LAND DRAINING TOWARD OCEANS 
2/1000 (440/9.400 SQ.M/LES ) 


33.6 GO| PRECIPITATION OVER LAND DRAINING TOWARD OCEANS 





27000 


13.0] EVAPORATION FROM CLOSED BASINS 
82400 (/1.583.000 SQ. MILE. S) 


730 |] PRECIPITATION OVER CLOSED BASINS 
. “L400 


upon entering land, at first lose the moisture which they 
obtain directly from the ocean, but in their farther 
movement into the interior they absorb the evaporation 
from the land. MHence, the farther from the ocean, the 
greater is the part of the air moisture contributed by 
evaporation from the land. At a certain distance from 
the ocean practically all of the moisture of the air must 
consist of moisture obtained by evaporation from the 
land. At least it must form a larger part than the water 
which was obtained directly by evaporation from the 
oceans. 


220 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


The vapour brought by the prevailing winds from the 
ocean is many times turned over or reinvested before it 
is returned again to the ocean through the rivers. If 
we could reduce the surface run-off, and at its expense 
increase the evaporation from the land, we would 
thereby increase the moisture in the passing air currents 
and in this way contribute to the precipitation of that 
region into which the prevailing winds blow. This 
conclusion is almost axiomatic. 

If the southerly and southeasterly winds in their 
passage toward the north, northwest, and northeast, in 
the spring and summer, did not encounter the vast 
forest areas bordering the shores of the Gulf of Mexico 
and the Atlantic Coast and those of the Southern 
Appalachian region and, therefore, were not enriched 
with enormous quantities of moisture given off by 
them, the precipitation in the central states and the 
‘prairie region would undoubtedly be much smaller 
than it is now. 

If the present area occupied by forest in the Atlantic 
plain and the Appalachian region were instead occupied 
by a large body of water, no meteorologist would hesi- 
tate. for a moment to admit that this water surface 
wouldshave a perceptible influence upon the humidity 
_of.the central states and prairie region. Should not, 
"therefore, the forests which give off into the atmosphere 
much larger quantities of moisture than free water sur- 
face have at least a similar influence upon the regions 
into which the prevailing air currents flow? 

Direct proof of this climatic influence quantitatively 
expressed is still lacking. It will take many decades 


HOW FORESTS FEED CLOUDS 221 


before direct observations of such a character will be 
secured. If, however, the premises upon which the 
discussion rests—namely, that precipitation of the 
eastern half of the United States is intimately connected 
with the prevailing south winds, that evaporation from 
land contributes more to the precipitation over land 
than evaporation from the ocean, that forests evaporate 
more water than free water surface or any other vege- 
tation—are correct, then forests in the path of pre- 
vailing winds must necessarily act as the distributors of 
precipitation over wide continents. 

The moisture given off by the forests into the air is 
formed into clouds. ‘These are carried by the prevailing 
southerly winds in the summer far into the interior of 
the country. There they settle as rain and enrich with 
moisture the fertile-agricultural lands. The central 
and prairie region—the granary of the United States 
—depends to a large extent for its rains on the moisture 
supplied by the forests of the southern and south- 


if? fi 


eastern States. LEE 4 , 


Mj 


GUIDE TO FuRTHER READING 


“Forests and Water in the Light of S@entific Inve “ wt’ Wo, 
Raphael Zon. Appendix V of the Final Report of the 


Waterways Commission, Senate Document 469, Sixty-sec Way, 
Congress, Second Session. A non-technical summary of the en- dig 
tire subject of the relation of forests and waters. 

“What the National Forests Mean to the Water User,” by S. T. 
Dana, U.S. Department of Agriculture. A popular presentation of 
the dependence of the water supply in the West on the National 
Forests. 

“Primer of Forestry.” Farmers’ Bulletins 173 and 358, U. S. 
Department of Agriculture. A popular discussion of the entire 


222 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


field of forestry. The statistical material is somewhat out of date. 

“Timber—Mine, or Crop?” 1922 Yearbook article. A compre- 
hensive, non-technical presentation of the importance of growing 
timber as a crop treated from a national economic standpoint. 

“Forests and Forestry in the United States.” Report prepared 
by the U. S. Forest Service for the Brazilian Exposition Commission, 
1923, Forest Service, Washington, D. C. A popular statement of 
the progress of forestry in the United States, with special reference 
to the National Forests. 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM 


By Cuartes O. AppLeman, Pu. D. 


Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Plant Physiology, 
University of Maryland 


HE potato crop ranks next to the cereals as a 

food crop in the United States. It ranks third 

in the number of calories that can be grown on 
an acre of land, corn ranking first and sweet potatoes 
second. ‘The average per capita annual consumption 
of potatoes for the past several years is 3.5 to 4 bushels. 
The 1922 acreage was more than 4,000,000 and the 
production nearly 400,000,000 bushels, or an average of 
about 100 bushels per acre. These are still far below 
the possibilities and are greatly exceeded in some other 
countries. Much scientific effort and education have 
been necessary to maintain even our present production 
and quality. The purpose of modern study of the 
potato is not only a greater average production per 
acre, but also a product of higher grade and quality 
that can be kept in good condition for consumption 
through the greater part of the year. Many years of 
investigation on some of the older and simpler problems 
have yielded such conclusive results that they are now 
simply awaiting more general application in practice. 
New potato problems are constantly arising. They 
are very diverse in character and their study is demand- 


223 


224 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


ing the combined efforts of many scientific specialists. 
What are a few of these problems and how are they 
being studied? 

Tue Rest Peritop.—In order to insure the con- 
tinued vegetative propagation of the potato plant as a 
permanent inhabitant of the earth, nature has en- 
dowed the tubers with a rest or dormant period, so that 
the young plants will not immediately start to grow and 
then be killed by the coming winter cold. ‘This is fine 
for the wild plant, but since man has tamed it and 
brought it under cultivation, the operation of the rest 
period does not always suit his requirements. Usually 
the potato tubers will not sprout for several weeks after 
they are harvested. The length of the rest period varies 
with different varieties, but is fairly constant for a given 
variety grown for a long time at the same place. The 
cause and control of this rest period is a subject of im- 
portance. Any practical means of eliminating or even 
abbreviating the rest period would be very valuable in 
growing a second crop in our southern states. It is 
also of equal importance to know how to extend the rest 
period of potatoes during storage. So far scientists 
have not been able fully to unravel nature’s secret of 
dormancy in potatoes, but some clues have been ob- 
tained. By carefully removing the skins from the 
tubers and supplying them with plenty of moisture, 
air, and a certain amount of warmth, the young sprouts 
will start to grow in a comparatively short time. This 
seems to indicate that the skins keep out something 
necessary for growth or prevent the escape from the in- 
side of the tuber of something holding growth back. 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM 225 


The former may be oxygen of the air and the latter the 
carbon dioxide produced by the tuber’s respiration. 
Other methods that have been found effective in short- 
ening the rest period, such as treating the tubers with 
certain gases, probably do so by rendering the skins 
more permeable to oxygen or carbon dioxide. However, 
this does not explain how the tubers finally come out of 
their rest period without help. Nature does not remove 
their jackets. 

DEGENERATION OF PoTaToEs.—When we start with 
a potato plant grown from a seed and use the tubers for 
its propagation, each succeeding crop really represents 
an annual growth of our original plant. This may be 
made clearer by comparing the seedling potato plant 
with a young apple tree. Every summer the tree 
produces a large number of buds which remain dormant 
until the following spring, when they give rise to a new 
crop of shoots. The potato plant likewise produces 
dormant buds on the tubers, which are large fleshy 
underground shoots, or stems. By the annual death 
of the vines the tubers are separated from the parent 
plant whose life is perpetuated by the tubers. If we 
imagine each succeeding crop of tubers, like the apple 
shoots, becoming a permanent part of the parent plant, 
we would have a giant potato plant often many years 
old. Are these giant potato plants, known as varieties, 
immortal, or are they subjected to old age and final 
death the same as animals? At first thought this 
might seem an easy question to answer, but scientists 
still hold divergent views about it. 

Degeneration of potatoes is a well-established fact. 


226 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


Varieties are known to have progressively lost their 
vigour and entirely run out in certain regions. We 
know now that many cases of degeneracy are due to 
slow diseases and not to old age. Symptoms that were 
once attributed to senility are now recognized as 
typical symptoms of “ Mosaic” and other virus diseases. 
An extreme view holds that a given variety would re- 
main vigorous and live indefinitely if grown continu- 
ously under favourable conditions. According to this 
view any degeneracy of a variety not due to apparent 
disease simple means that it is unable to cope with the 
adversities of its environment. This is undoubtedly 
often the case because varieties have been grown for 
many years in some places without loss of vigour, but 
gradually degenerate in another region. Potatoes for the 
spring planting in the southern states are usually im- 
ported from the north, as these varieties degenerate 
when the seed stock is home-grown. Even in the 
more northern states it is often necessary to obtain the 
seed tubers of some varieties from other regions in 
order to maintain the normal vigour of the crop and 
certain desired characters of the tubers. Lack of 
adaptation to environment can be argued against any 
claims for an inherent tendency to old age in potato 
varieties, so we may still ask the question, does our 
giant potato plant naturally grow old? 

SEED Stock.—Modern potato research is showing a 
very decided trend toward studies of the factors in- 
fluencing the vitality of the seed stock and of practical 
methods for maintaining the normal vigour of the 
variety. The potato plant is grown from a specialized 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM — 227 


vegetative portion of the parent plant, namely, the 
tuber. Therefore, if the daughter plant is to maintain 
full vigour the parent tuber, or fraction thereof, must 
possess and maintain this normal vegetative vigour 
until it is planted. The growing appreciation of the 
importance of good vigorous seed stock true to name is 
one of the most promising developments in modern 
potato culture. Many factors are now known to in- 
fluence in varying degrees the vitality of seed tubers, 
as storage conditions, maturity, repeated sprouting, 
methods of preparation of tubers for planting, physio- 
logical and virus diseases, climatic conditions, where and 
when seed is grown, etc. Important researches con- 
cerning the vitality of seed stock have yielded infor- 
mation of great value to potato culture, but there is 
still need of much careful research. 

The practice of seed inspection and certification 1s 
contributing greatly toward the improvement of seed 
stock. The growers of seed potatoes apply to state 
officials for inspection of their crop. ‘The inspections 
are made two or three times while the crop is growing 
and once after harvest. Ifthe crop comes up to certain 
standards in respect to freedom from diseases and weak 
plants, as well as true to type, it is certified. The 
grower pays a small fee for this service and commands a 
higher price for the certified product. The grower can 
afford to pay a higher price for he can then grow more 
and better potatoes. 

If the tubers have begun to sprout before they are 
planted, as is frequently the case, the character of the 
sprout growth is a rough index of seed vitality in many 


228 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


varieties. Good normal tubers, as a rule, will sprout 
first from the eyes on the terminal or seed end of the 
tuber. These sprouts, if not destroyed, or too much 
impeded in growth, will inhibit the growth of sprouts 
from the basal eyes. If the first sprouts lack the nor- 
mal vigour of the variety they will not prevent the 
growth of sprouts from the more basal eyes, but sprouts 
will be scattered over the entire tuber. This lack of 
apical dominance in the first crop of sprouts is a sign of 
low tuber vitality, or in other words, its inability to pro- 
duce vigorous plants with the proper number of stalks. 
Extreme cases of low vitality are manifested in the 
spindliness of the sprouts, but in many cases the sprouts 
are much below normal in growth vigour without show- 
ing the characteristic spindliness. It is in the latter 
case that lack of apical dominance is of service as a 
guide. 

A great deal of the older potato research was con- 
cerned with methods of cutting the seed tubers and 
with the most profitable amount of seed to plant per 
acre. In regard to certain phases of this problem the 
results have been so uniform and conclusive that it is 
now largely a matter of education to get them more 
generally adopted in practice. It is generally conceded 
that no conditions will justify planting seed pieces 
weighing less than 1.5 to 2 ounces. With high fertility 
and cheap seed it is sometimes profitable in some locali- 
ties to plant seed pieces weighing even more than 2 
ounces. More recent research has shown that the 
low yields from small seed pieces is traceable to weak 
sprouts produced by the small pieces. After a mini- 





Plate. 1. Sprouts from different size seed pieces. Normal sprouts on seed 
pieces in row I. 


sjod 991Y4y oyt UI [BONQUIpP!I 919M SUOTIPUOD poInIyNo IT ‘paquey|d saoaid pges 
jo 9ZIS IY IJRIIPUI siod 94} UO SIoquINnuU Iq] ‘T o3e[q Ul UMOYS ISOYI Se saoatd P9PS IZIS 9UTvS UIOI{ SJUL[F °C IVIg 














THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM = 229 


mum size of seed piece is reached, the vigour of the 
sprouts becomes progressively less as the size of the 
seed piece is further reduced. This minimum size for 
many varieties has been found to be about 1.5 ounces. 
The cause of the weak growth of sprouts on pieces of 
tuber below a minimum size is not definitely known. 
There are some indications that the potato tuber con- 
tains a limited amount of an accessory growth- 
promoting material. This may or may not be analo- 
gous to the vitamine so essential to growth in animals. 
Experiments have shown that seed pieces large enough 
to contain an abundance of the usual nutrients for 
sprout growth still produce weak sprouts. ‘These seed 
pieces lack something in sufhcient amount to start 
growth off normally. The plants from these weak 
sprouts are correspondingly weak and the best of cul- 
tural conditions will not revive their normal vigour. 
During the recent war a prominent newspaper recom- 
mended the planting of peelings and saving the rest of 
the tuber for consumption. Valuable land and labour 
were wasted by this practice. 

VARIETAL NOMENCLATURE.—Ihe ever increasing 
number of so-called varieties has made the subject of 
nomenclature for potato varieties an important potato 
problem. More than five hundred names are reported 
for varieties that are supposed to be still grown in the 
United States. Much of the present confusion in 
varietal nomenclature has resulted from the propensity 
of seedmen to rename old varieties and to introduce 
new varieties indistinguishable from existing ones. 
This chaotic condition has been greatly improved by 


230 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


arranging these names into typical groups, a very 1m- 
portant but difficult task. The public and the potato 
industry should be protected by certain restrictions 
governing the introduction of new potato varieties. 
Encouraging efforts are being made in this direction. 

Potato IMPpROVEMENT.—Variety testing has long 
been a favourite type of potato investigation. ‘The re- 
sults of this enormous amount of work have been of 
great local importance in discovering standard varieties 
best suited to particular climate and soil conditions, but 
they have been of very limited general application. 
Recent years have shown a marked decrease in the 
number of such investigations. Much of this effort 
is now being replaced by attempts to improve our 
standard varieties and to develop new varieties better 
suited to local condition. 

The potato can be improved by application of modern 
knowledge of breeding and selection. The former 
method consists in the actual crossing of two varieties 
by artificially applying the pollen of one parent to the 
stigma of the other. ‘This is the only means by which 
desirable characters of two parents can be combined 
in the offspring. It is frequently desirable to combine, 
in the offspring, immunity to disease of one parent 
with high yield or better cooking quality of the other 
parent, or high yield with more desirable tuber charac- 
ters, as size, shape, shallow eyes, etc. Most of our 
present varieties have originated as seedlings, either 
by chance or artificial breeding. Unfortunately potato 
breeding is fraught with many difficulties. On account 
of long continued reproduction by tubers or for other 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM 231 


reasons, sterility in the flowers of potatoes is the rule 
rather than the exception—that is, potato seeds are 
rarely produced. ‘The cause of this phenomena is being 
investigated with the view of bringing it under control 
in breeding work. Another difficulty is the fact that 
most varieties of potatoes are already hybrids possess- 
ing latent characteristics of their wild ancestors. These 
undesirable characters are liable to crop out and be- 
come dominant in the seedlings, so it is necessary to 
grow a large number of plants from which to select the 
ones desired. The increasing prevalence of diseases is 
also adding greatly to the almost insurmountable diff- 
culties of the potato breeder. On account of difficulties 
involved and the expert technique required, to say noth- 
ing of the expense, potato breeding cannot be generally 
practised as a method of potato improvement. How- 
ever, important improvements of potato varieties have 
been made by this method and the outlook is very prom- 
ising for further improvements. Some attempts are 
being made to breed strains that will propagate them- 
selves just as well by seeds as by tubers. If this can 
be accomplished, it will result in great saving in the price 
of seed and in the elimination of diseases that are carried 
in and on infected tubers. 

The second method intended to improve existing 
varieties is by selection. The procedure is to propa- 
gate from a single tuber, or from desirable hills selected 
in the field. Selection methods have been extensively 
used and are still practised, although it has not been 
definitely proved that our existing varieties can be 
much improved by these methods. ‘The chief benefits 


232 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


derived from selection methods may be due entirely to 
the elimination from the seed stock of tubers produced 
by degenerate or diseased plants. From this viewpoint, 
hill selection must be an annual task. Bud sports 
or “mutants,” do occasionally appear in the tubers. 
New varieties have arisen in this way, most of them 
differing from the parent variety merely in a modifica- 
tion of the colour of the skin or tissue and in the period 
of ripening. Bud sports are not usually considered of 
much importance in selection work on account of their 
infrequent occurrence. 

At the present time great emphasis is being placed 
upon the importance of discovering strains of our 
standard commercial varieties that are more vigorous 
and productive than others. 

SALT Nutrition.—Different crops have different re- 
quirements regarding the nutrients supplied to the 
roots. All of them demand a group of essential ele- 
ments, but these are utilized in different proportions by 
different crops. If the soil does not already contain 
these necessary elements in the proper amounts, they 
must be supplied in fertilizers. The importance of 
fertilizing the crop rather than the soil has led to ex- 
tensive and carefully controlled experiments to dis- 
cover the salt requirements peculiar to different crops. 
This applies not only to the proper proportions of the 
salts, but also to the kind of salts carrying the fertilizer 
elements. Modern methods of salt nutrition studies 
applied to the potato crop are now supplementing the 
older empirical fertilizer tests and the outlook indicates 
a more rational and economic fertilizer practice. 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM — 233 


DisEasEs.—Potatoes, like human beings, are subject 
to serious and destructive diseases. Some of these 
diseases frequently become epidemic in certain sec- 
tions of the country, causing almost total loss of the 
crop. The potato plant may become afflicted with 
purely physiological troubles but the most destructive 
diseases are parasitic in origin. As in the case of 
animals, these pathogenic organisms are of several 
different types. Although fungous diseases are rare 
in animals they cause the largest group of potato dis- 
eases. Early blight (Aliernaria solani) and late blight 
(Phytophthora infestans) especially the latter, head the 
list of destructive fungous diseases. Both are diseases 
of the foliage and stems but late blight also attacks the 
tubers, causing them to rot either in the field or under 
improper storage conditions. Fortunately, science has 
found a specific preventive for these parasites. Spray- 
ing the plants with Bordeaux mixture will check the 
ravages of both diseases. In 1885 Millardet, then 
professor at the University of Bordeaux, published the 
first directions for preparing Bordeaux mixture, which 
consisted of certain proportions of water, copper sul- 
fate, and lime. This mixture has proved of inesti- 
mable value in the control of some of the most destruc- 
tive diseases of our food crops. 

The thread-like hyphae of the fungi causing the 
Fusarium and Verticillium wilts grow in the conducting 
vessels of the stems and thereby prevent the passage of 
water through the stems to the leaves. Wilting of the 
foliage and death of the plant follow. Although the 
wilts do not cause as much damage as the unchecked 


234. SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


blights, they are more difficult to control. Certain 
helpful measures have been found effective in check- 
ing these diseases, but absolute control is yet un- 
known. 

One of the most dangerous of the European fungous 
diseases of the white potato is the potato wart. Itisa 
disease of the tubers and from the standpoint of its 
seriousness and some of its characteristic manifestations 
it may be thought of as potato cancer, although it is 
unlike true animal cancer in that it 1s very infectious. 
In advanced stages the warty growths on the tubers may 
be as large as the tuber itself. In severe cases the fun- 
gous consumes nearly all of the stored food material in 
the tuber, reducing it to a soft mass. Realizing the 
possibility of this dread disease being introduced into 
the United States, an embargo went into effect in 1912 
against potatoes from countries known to harbour wart. 
This legislation evidently came a little too late, for in 
1918 the disease was discovered in gardens at Highland, 
Pa., a hamlet in the heart of the anthracite coal dis- 
trict. The alarming discovery of this malady in the 
United States at once led federal and state officials to 
launch an extensive campaign to discover the extent 
of its occurrence in this country. So far it has been 
found only in gardens, chiefly in restricted areas of the 
mining districts, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and 
Maryland. Strict quarantine has been placed on these 
districts and every effort is being made to prevent its 
spread. ‘This virulent and dangerous disease has rather 
suddenly become one of the modern potato problems in 
this country. Immunity to disease in plants is beauti- 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM 23; 


fully demonstrated in the case of potato wart. Experi- 
ments have shown that the susceptibility of the varie- 
ties tested varies within wide limits. A number of 
varieties were found to be absolutely immune. In- 
cluded in this group are some of our leading commercial 
varieties, as the Irish Cobbler and Green Mountain. 
On the other hand it is unfortunate that some of our 
other leading varieties are so susceptible that they 
are practically destroyed when attacked by the wart 
disease. The growing of immune varieties has been 
found to be the only practical method of controlling 
this disease in several European countries. 

There is a group of filamentous micro-organisms 
occupying an intermediate position between the moulds 
and the bacteria. To this group of parasites belong the 
Actinomyces. Certain species of this parasite cause 
serious suppurative affections in animals. Another 
species is the cause of one of the most common diseases 
of the potato tuber, the common scab. It is recognized 
by the rough pitting of the tubers, rendering them un- 
sightly and greatly depreciating their market value. 
This disease is no longer a serious problem in potato 
culture aside from the expense and labour involved in 
its control. By careful selection and disinfection of 
the seed tubers, this source of the infection may be 
controlled. The most effective, as well as the cheapest, 
means of controlling the organisms in the soil are still 
problems that are being studied. ‘This organism thrives 
best in soils of an alkaline reaction. ‘The addition of 
sulphur to certain types of soil has recently been recom- 
mended as a means of controlling scab. ‘The oxidation 


236 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


of the sulphur produces the necessary acid reaction in 
the soil to check the growth of the scab organism. 
Several years ago Dr. Erwin F. Smith ventured the 
statement that “‘there are in all probability as many 
bacterial diseases of plants as of animals.” Time has 
more than borne out this statement. However, bac- 
terial diseases of the potato crop are not at the present 
time a serious problem. ‘The disease known as black- 
leg (Bacillus phytophthorus, Appel) which attacks both 
the vines and tubers, may, under certain climatic con- 
ditions, cause considerable damage. There seems to be 
no evidence that the causal organism can live over win- 
ter in the soil or in diseased tubers that may remain in 
the soil. Careful selection and disinfection of the seed 
tubers would appear then to be adequate prophylactic 
measures to control this bacterial disease of potatoes. 
The two diseases known as “ Leaf-roll”’ and ‘‘ Mosaic” 
belong to the same category as measles and scarlet 
fever, being infectious diseases of unknown causation. 
Potato leaf-roll has been recognized only in recent years 
in this country. Mosaic is an old disease formerly 
known as leaf-curl or curly dwarf and thought to be 
associated with degeneration or senility of the variety. 
On account of the increasing prevalence of these dis- 
eases and the difficulties involved in their control they 
have become the chief potato disease problem in some 
sections of the country. Quanjer, a Dutch scientist, 
has shown by grafting diseased branches on healthy 
stocks that both diseases are contagious and that the 
virus is carried in the juice of the plant and tu- 
ber. He also showed that the virus from diseased 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM — 237 


plants may pass through the soil to healthy plants as 
far as two or three yards away. More recently the 
transmission of leaf-roll from one plant to another by 
aphids, or plant-lice, has been demonstrated. Other 
means of transmission are yet unknown. Healthy 
growing plants that become infected with the virus of 
either of these diseases respond rather slowly to the in- 
fection, making it difficult to recognize the symptoms 
in the first crop. Since the virus is carried in the tuber 
these diseases are truly hereditary, and they become 
progressively more severe with each succeeding genera- 
tion. The impossibility of reaching the virus by seed 
treatments coupled with the difficulty of recognizing 
the symptoms in their incipient stages, greatly add to 
the seriousness of the increasing prevalence of both the 
leaf-roll and mosaic diseases. 

Of the physiological diseases of the potato, the so- 
called spindling sprout disease is probably the most 
important. However, to speak of a spindling sprout 
disease is misleading, since the weak spindling sprouts 
are merely a symptom which may have a variety of 
causes. The true spindling sprout diseases referred to 
here appears to be a response to unusually hot and 
possibly dry mid-summer conditions when the tubers 
are forming. ‘The only reliable visible symptom of the 
disease in the tuber is the spindliness of the sprouts and 
the frequent appearance, in severe cases, of small tubers 
at the base of these sprouts. Studies on this disease 
have revealed some characteristic physiological and 
chemical conditions of the spindling sprout tubers, but 
it is impossible yet to say whether any one of these con- 


238 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


ditions is the cause or result of the trouble. There are 
some indications that suggest a lack on these tubers of 
a sufficient amount of an accessory growth-promoting 
substance. It is possible by repeated sprouting to 
cause normal tubers to produce typical spindling sprouts 
even to the point when small tubers appear at the base 
of the sprouts, a characteristic of severe cases of the 
spindling sprout disease. Chemical analysis of the 
mother tubers showed that very small amounts of the 
usual food materials had been removed from the tubers 
when the sprouts began to show decided spindliness 
of growth. However, the tubers were exhausted of a 
substance necessary for normal growth. 

In cool climates the spindling disease is rare, but it is 
very prevalent in our southern states. Experimenta- 
tion in recent years has proved conclusively the supe- 
riority of northern seed over home-grown seed for the 
early crop in the more southern latitudes. The true 
character of this place-effect in the production of seed 
potatoes is certainly not definitely known, but it is be- 
lieved that the spindling sprout disease is an important 
contributing factor. 

During certain seasons the potato crop suffers much 
damage by the premature death of the tips and margins 
of the leaves, without evident parasitic causation. This 
condition, known as tip-burn, has usually been attrib- 
uted to the loss of water from the leaves by transpira- 
tion at a more rapid rate than it can be supplied by the 
roots under the prevailing climatic conditions. This 
simple explanation of tip-burn has been recently con- 
tested, and its true cause has truly become a real mod- 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM — 239 


ern potato problem. Entomologists have recently dem- 
onstrated an apparent close association of the insects 
known as leaf-hoppers with tip-burn and they have been 
inclined to carry this condition over into their domain 
and have renamed it hopper-burn. It has also been 
claimed that the secret of tip-burn on the potato foliage 
is to be found in the water pores, or hydathodes, which 
are grouped around the margin of the leaf on the upper 
side and masked toward its tip end. ‘The death of the 
marginal vein is due to the loss of water from these 
pores which lie over it. ‘This is followed by a browning 
of the entire region. Attention is particularly called 
to the fact that the plant can control the opening and 
closing of the stomata but that the hydathodes remain 
open permanently. 

Modern potato disease research in common with re- 
search on plant diseases in general has assumed a much 
broader scope than formerly. In the past the pathol- 
ogists devoted most of their studies to the parasite. 
This type of research is now being supplemented by 
physiological studies. ‘The influence of environment on 
disease is being emphasized. Investigations are yield- 
ing results of tremendous practical importance. They 
are explaining the variability in the occurrence of cer- 
tain diseases both in general and local areas. ‘The 
factors influencing the susceptibility of the plant to 
various diseases and the physiological responses of the 
plant to the invading organisms are problems awaiting 
further research. 

Potato Storace.—The storage and transportation 
of plant food products is becoming a national problem, 


240 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


ranking in importance with their production. ‘The con- 
centration of our population in the cities makes it neces- 
sary to draw on stored products in ever greater quantity 
and for longer periods of time. Great quantities of 
potatoes for future consumption and for seed are stored 
both at places of production and in terminal warehouses. 
The present losses due to unfavourable storage condi- 
tions are enormous. ‘To store potatoes like household 
furniture, a method still practised, especially in ter- 
minal warehouses, is a costly procedure. 

First of all we must bear in mind the fact that the 
potato is a living, breathing creature and must be 
treated as such. It is not endowed with natural long 
life, but is intended to perpetuate the life of the variety 
by giving rise to new plants. ‘The practical problem of 
potato storage is to prolong the life of the tubers with- 
out impairment of their culinary or seed value. They 
must also be protected against decay caused by micro- 
organisms. ‘Their tissues form an ideal medium for the 
growth of fungi and bacteria. 

The necessity of specialized storage for potatoes is 
now generally recognized, but there is still much 
difference of opinion regarding the most favourable 
storage conditions. This situation is due in part to a 
lack of sufficient and accurate scientific information on 
the physiology of the potato tuber during the different 
periods of its storage life. Storage conditions that are 
most favourable or allowable for one period in the stor- 
age life of the potato may not be the best or even toler- 
ated in a previous or succeeding period. Although the 
complete story of the physiology of the potato during 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM 241 


its storage life is yet to be written, sufficient information 
is now available to characterize certain fairly definite 
periods of importance in practical storage. During 
the early dormant period chemical changes due to ripen- 
ing may continue, if the tubers have not fully ripened 
in the ground. ‘These chemical changes consist mainly 
in the building up of complex food and structural ma- 
terials from simpler substances. For example, nearly 
all of the sugar in unripe potatoes is converted into 
starch. Cork formation in the skins may continue for 
sometime. Shrinkage of the tubers due to loss of water 
is unusually high during this period. 

The latter part of the dormant period may be spoken 
of as the late dormant period. By this time the skins 
are well corked and the loss of water from the tubers 
by evaporation is very low unless the storage air is 
unusually dry. The building up and breaking down 
processes in the tubers now tend to equalize each other 
and at temperatures between 40° and 70° F. there is very 
little change in the percentage composition of the tubers. 
The potatoes are much less effected by storage condition 
than during any other period in their storage life. 

The period that elapses between the time when 
potatoes come out of their rest period and will sprout 
under growing conditions, and the time when sprouting 
actually begins, may be thought of as the post-dormant 
period and is the critical period in the storage of po- 
tatoes. The breaking-down processes, or hydrolysis, 
tend to predominate, probably due to weakening with 
age of the constructive or synthetic processes. The 
tubers are liable to soften rapidly with unfavourable 


242 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


storage conditions. ~The market demands a firm potato 
as it has better cooking qualities. The sprouting period 
is characterized by high destructive metabolism, result- 
ing in loss from the tubers of starch and other solids. 
Loss of water through the sprouts may also be high. 
The final result of these processes is the extreme wilting 
of the tubers. 

External conditions have a profound influence on the 
physiology of potatoes in storage. Undesirable changes 
in the tubers may be controlled or checked and their 
storage life prolonged by a proper combination of stor- 
age temperature, humidity, and ventilation. The most 
favourable combinations of these factors for the differ- 
ent periods in the storage life of the potato can be de- 
termined only when we possess accurate and controlled 
data on the individual effects of these storage factors. 

When human beings are well the temperature of their 
bodies is practically constant regardless of the external 
temperature. Plants are not so fortunate, as the tem- 
perature in their tissues changes with that around them. 
This explains why temperature is so important in shap- 
ing the life activities of plants and in controlling their 
destiny. , 

The researches of Muller-Thurgau clearly demon- 
strated the relationship between storage temperature 
and the accumulation of sugar in the tubers. Po- 
tatoes attain their maximum sweetness after a few 
weeks’ storage at a temperature of 32° F. and not as a 
result of freezing, which does not occur until the tem- 
perature falls to 28° or 26° F. Potatoes will accumulate 
a small amount of sugar at 42° F. but practically none 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM 243 


above this temperature. The maximum sugar content 
found in potatoes after storage at a given low tempera- 
ture varies with time of year and with individual tubers, 
young tubers accumulating less sugar than older ones. 
Muller-Thurgau found that the sugar in potatoes after 
a period of storage at low temperature is changed again 
into starch when the tubers are exposed for from eight to 
ten days at ordinary room temperature. This dis- 
covery has been confirmed by other workers on a large 
number of different varieties and is a practical means of 
removing from potatoes their undesirable sweetness. 
More recent work has shown that the room temperature 
must not be too high because potatoes which have be- 
come sweet will not lose their sugar at temperatures as 
high as 80° to 85° F., but may continue for a time to ac- 
cumulate more sugar. 

Respiration is a vital process common to all living 
things. Breathing is just as essential to the life of a 
potato as it is to the life of man, although this fact is 
not generally appreciated. ‘The intensity of respiration 
in potatoes varies with the storage temperature, the 
higher the temperature up to a maximum of about 
110° F. the greater the respiratory rate. In the process 
of respiration, oxygen and carbohydrates, as sugar and 
starch, are consumed and carbon dioxide, water and 
heat are produced. The accumulation of these pro- 
ducts in storage is injurious to potatoes, therefore ven- 
tilation is just as essential to the health of a potato as it 
is to the health of animals. In extreme cases of high 
temperature and poor ventilation, death of the inter- 
nal tissues of potatoes by suffocation may occur, giving 


244 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


rise to the condition known as “Black Heart.” Dead 
tissue of a vegetable or fruit will decompose and spoil 
very quickly at ordinary temperature. 

One of the most important discoveries in connection 
with respiration of potatoes is the fact that when they 
have been stored for a period at low temperature and 
then transferred to higher temperature their respiration 
for a few days is very high but gradually falls to the 
normal rate for the given temperature. ‘This initial 
period of abnormally high respiration may, under cer- 
tain conditions, become an important factor in the keep- 
ing qualities of cold-storage potatoes during their 
transportation and marketing. ‘These potatoes must be 
supplied with very good ventilation, especially for the 
first week or two after they are taken from cold storage. 
For the same reason potatoes in late common storage 
must be well ventilated. Experiments are now in prog- 
ress to discover, if possible, storage conditions that are 
generally satisfactory but that will not impose upon 
the tubers the initial abnormal rate of respiration when 
they are exposed to higher temperatures. 

Storage temperature is the most important factor in 
controlling the growth of decay organisms as well as the 
growth of sprouts in late storage. At temperatures 
below 46° F. the damage due to rot organisms is very 
slight. 

When all of the temperature effects are considered, 
the selection of the best storage temperature will be a 
compromise and will probably vary somewhat with 
the storage period. ‘Temperatures ranging from 36° to 
42° F. are now recommended for potatoes to be used 


THE MODERN POTATO PROBLEM  24< 


for food. Seed potatoes may be stored at temperatures 
as low as 33° F. without impairment of seed value if the 
storage period is not too long. It is probable that the 
age and condition of the tubers, when placed in storage, 
are important factors in determining the possible period 
of cold storage before they are damaged for seed. 

Besides supplying oxygen to the potatoes and dissi- 
pating the products of respiration, ventilation is also a 
means of removing excessive moisture from the storage 
air and of controlling the temperature of common stor- 
age. The necessary amount of ventilation depends 
upon the temperature and the season of the year. It is 
quite generally agreed that the humidity in the storage 
air should not permit condensation of water on the 
tubers, but it should be high enough to prevent undue 
shrinkage and wilting of the tubers by evaporation 
of their water. The relative humidity would vary 
with the temperature; at 40° F.,it would be about 80 
per cent. 

This discussion has included just a few of the impor- 
tant modern potato problems. Many others of equal 
importance are confronting the potato grower and the 
potato industry in general—such as the physiology of 
tuberization, immunity to disease, various cultural 
problems, marketing, utilization of culls and surplus 
crops, chemical composition, and cooking qualities of 
the tubers as effected by different conditions. 

Many of the modern potato problems are typical of 
other food crops and rank with the most important 
problems confronting modern science as they are con- 
cerned with the world’s food supply. 


246 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


GuIDE TO FuRTHER READING 


“Study of the Rest Periods in Potato Tubers,” by C. O. Apple- 
man. Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, Bull. No. 183, 
IQI4. 

“Physiological Basis for the Preparation of Potatoes for Seed,” 
by C. O. Appleman.. Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, 
Bull. No. 212, 1918. 

“Anatomy of the Potato Plant, with Special Reference to the 
Outogeny of the Vascular System,” by Ernest F. Artschwager, 1918. 

“Potato Diseases,” by C. R. Orton. Agricultural Experimental 
Station, Penn. State College, Bull. No. 140, 1916. 

“Potato Tuber Diseases,” by W. A. Orton. United States De- 
partment of Agriculture, Farmers’ Bull. No. 544. 

“Lessons for American Potato Growers from German Ex- 
periences,” by W. R. Orton. United States Department of Agri- 
culture, Bull. No. 47, 1913. 

Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Potato Associa- 
tion of America, 1921. 

“The Mosaic Disease of the Solanacez, etc.” by H. M. Quanjer. 
Phytopathology, 10: 35-47, 1920. 

“Degeneration of Potatoes,” by Redcliffe N. Salaman. Royal 
Horticultural Society, International Potato Conference. 

“Leaf-roll, Net-Necrosis, and Spindling-Sprout of the Irish Po- 
tato,’ by E. S. Schultz and Donald Folsom. Journal Agricultural 
Research, 21: 47-68, 1921. 

“Group Classification and Varietal Descriptions of Some Ameri- 
can Potatoes,” by William Stuart. United States Department of 
Agriculture, Bull. No. 176, 1915. 

“Potato Breeding and Selection,” by William Stuart. United 
States Department of Agriculture, Bull. No. 195. 


CHEMISTRY AND ECONOMY OF FOOD 


By Henry C. SHERMAN, Pu.D. 


Professor of Food Chemistry and Executive Officer of the 
Department of Chemistry, Columbia Unwersity 


ALF of the struggle of life is a struggle for food” 
in the sense that a majority of the world’s 
people must spend as much of their time or 

their earnings in providing themselves with adequate 
food as with all other necessities combined. 

THE COST AND THE FUNCTIONS OF Foop.—A family 
in comfortable circumstances may spend as much for 
rent, sometimes (too often perhaps) as much for cloth- 
ing, as for food. The food is more nearly a fixed re- 
quirement than are the other items of the cost of living. 
When we consider the larger numbers of families who 
must live on smaller incomes we find that while the ex- 
penditures for food average somewhat less than in well- 
to-do families of the same size, yet in general it is not 
feasible to diminish the expenditure for food in the same 
proportion that the income is diminished. ‘Thus the 
smaller the income the larger the proportion of it that 
goes for food. In the typical family of a labouring man 
or minor clerk half of the entire income is often spent 
for food and must be if the health and efficiency of the 
family are to be maintained. Or as one writer puts it: 

247] 


248 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


“The less the worker gains the more he must invest in 
food, renouncing of necessity all other desires.” 

Why? What makes it necessary for the majority to 
renounce so much of what they rightly desire in other 
directions and spend such large fractions of their slender 
incomes upon food? 

It is because the functions performed by our food are 
so urgently and fundamentally necessary not only to 
our comfort, efficiency, and health, but even to life it- 
self. Very briefly stated the functions of food are: 
(1) to yield energy for carrying on the activities of 
the body; (2) to furnish the materials necessary for the 
growth and repair or upkeep of the body tissues; (3) to 
regulate conditions and processes in the body. ‘The 
most prominent function of food, and the one in which 
nearly all articles of food take part, is to burn in the 
body and so yield the energy for the work which is al- 
ways going on in every living organism even when it is, 
as we ordinarily speak, at rest. For every act and sign 
of life involves warmth, movement, or some other form 
of energy expenditure. 

Fundamental as is the energy requirement or need for 
calories, yet food requirements cannot be met in terms 
of calories alone. Our wheat and corn crops alone 
would furnish each year enough calories for four times 
our population. But we could not thrive long on grains 
alone, for they are not entirely satisfactory in the fulfill- 
ment of the second and third functions of food. While 
we in America have an unparalleled food resource in 
our grain crops, we need other food crops also to make 
our food supply adequate as well as abundant. | 


CHEMISTRY AND FOOD 249 


Foop CHEemistry.—Chemistry has already made and 
will surely continue to make many important contri- 
butions to the problems of food supply. Soil problems; 
fertilizer problems, including the fixation of atmospheric 
nitrogen and the utilization of the potash which would 
otherwise be lost in the cement industry or remain un- 
claimed in the desert lakes or in the sea; the problems of 
properly handling and preserving the food crops; the 
invention, development, and control of manufacturing 
operations in the food industries; as well as the inspec- 
tion of their products in the interest of the consuming 
public—all these are problems largely for the chemist to 
solve and fields of work in which chemistry has already 
shown noteworthy achievements and must continue to 
play a leading part. 

Perhaps the most important of all the services of food 
chemistry lies in the formulation of the requirements of 
human nutrition in explicit, scientific, and practical 
terms, and in determining the relative values of different 
foods in nutrition and the ways in which they supple- 
ment each other so that we may know how best to use 
our food supplies to the end that all people may be as 
well nourished as possible. For good nutrition is an 
even larger factor in health, happiness, and efhciency 
than we have previously supposed. 

Until recently the application of chemistry to food 
problems, which has been uppermost in the public 
mind, has been in the use of chemical analysis to detect 
adulterations in food. ‘There was justification for the 
charge sometimes brought against the food chemist that 
he ‘“‘spends his time finding out what we shouldn’t eat 


250 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


instead of what we should.” In those days, too, at- 
tempts to describe a good diet in purely chemical terms 
were hampered by the embarrassing fact that all efforts © 
to raise animals upon mixtures of carefully purified food 

substances containing all the chemical compounds then 

known as essential to foods, had ended in failure; in fact, 

the purer the chemical substances making up the food 

mixture, the more certainly did it fail to support normal 

nutrition. Whether nutritive failure resulted from the 

need of other substances in addition to those then known 

as essential, or from faulty selection or combination of 
the nutrients entering into the artificial food mixture, 

remained obscure until about ten years ago when the 

work of Hopkins in England, and of Osborne and Men- 

del and McCollum and Davis in this country, made it 

clear that an adequate food supply must furnish cer- 

tain substances which are absolutely essential but whose 

existence was previously unknown, and which we now 

know as the vitamins. ; 

Although the vitamins have not yet been isolated in 
pure form, nor their chemical nature determined, yet 
we now know enough of their occurrence in foods and 
their functions in nutrition to include them in our 
study and discussion of food values, and we can now 
describe adequate food supply in chemical terms with 
confidence that we are taking account of all essential. 
factors. Such a description requires the use of a small 
number of terms which a few years ago were regarded as 
technical but which have now become household words 
through the war-time discussions of food values and 
food conservation. An adequate food supply may be 


‘CHEMISTRY AND FOOD act 


described from the chemical point of view as one which 
furnishes: (1) sufficient amounts of digestible material to 
yield when burned in the body the necessary number of 
calories of energy; (2) enough protein of suitable sorts; 
(3) adequate amounts and suitable proportions of a 
number of mineral or inorganic elements (the ash con- 
stituents of the food); (4) enough of each of at least 
three kinds of vitamins. 

If a mechanical analogy helps, one may compare the 
body and its food to a gasolene engine and its require- 
ments.- The digestible organic foodstuffs such as fats, 
sugars, and starches correspond to the fuel for the engine; 
the proteins and some of the mineral matters to the 
materials of which the motor is made; other mineral 
matters to the lubricant; and the vitamins to the igni- 
tion sparks whose own energy is insignificant but with- 
out which the engine cannot run, however fine the ma- 
terials of which it is built or however abundant and 
appropriate the supplies of fuel and of lubricant. 

The efficiency with which economy in the use of food 
can be combined with entire adequacy of nutrition is 
chiefly dependent upon the extent to which we can state 
the various esssentials of an adequate diet in quantita- 
tive terms. Here in the most practical manner imagin- 
able the exact science of the research laboratory in food 
chemistry comes directly into the service of human nu- 
trition. How best to spend a dollar in the purchase of 
food for a family, or how best to divide the money which 
is to be spent for food—is a problem more often met 
than faced and one which may well serve to put into 
practical use whatever knowledge of food values and 


252 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


food needs has been gained from the simplest food 
study of the elementary school or from the most ad- 
vanced university course in the chemistry of food and 
nutrition. 

FueL, or Enercy VaALues oF Foop—TuHE Torta 
Foop REQUIREMENT.—The exact quantitative deter- 
mination of human food requirements is chiefly the out- 
growth of the nutrition investigations begun by means 
of a small appropriation made by Congress to the 
United States Department of Agriculture and expended 
under the direction of Dr. W. O. Atwater, late Professor 
of Chemistry in Wesleyan University. Professors At- 
water, Rosa, and Benedict constructed in the basement 
of the chemical laboratory of Wesleyan University at 
Middletown, Connecticut, the first practically success- 
ful apparatus for the measurement of the energy ex- 
changes in, and the energy needs of, the human body. 

The outstanding achievement of Professor Atwater’s 
work in this field was the development of a respiration 
calorimeter suited to direct experiments with men at 
rest and at work, and the perfection of this apparatus 
until it became truly an instrument of precision. This 
respiration calorimeter provided a copper room seven 
feet long, four feet wide, six and one-half feet high in 
which a man may live as many days as the particular 
experiment may require, and fitted with means for 
measuring accurately the amounts of energy used by 
the man under various conditions of activity and occu- 
pation. Figure 1 shows a general view of this appara- 
tus as it was developed and used in the Atwater labora- 
tory; Figures 2 and 3 show inside views of the living 


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CHEMISTRY AND FOOD 253 


chamber. For explanation of the various parts refer- 
ence must be made to fuller descriptions of the appara- 
tus, ¢. g., Bulletin 175 of the Office of Experiment Sta- 
tions, United States Department of Agriculture, and 
Publication 123 of the Carnegie Institution of Wash- 
ington. 

When the experiments made by means of this original 
respiration calorimeter had given sufficient knowledge 
of the relative expenditures of energy at different times 
of the day and night and under different conditions of 
work and rest, it became possible to study particular 
problems by means of apparatus of smaller size and of 
particular design according to the nature of the problem 
to be investigated. Examples of such apparatus are 
the chair calorimeter and bed calorimeter (Figures 4 
and 5) which are but two of the many improved calori- 
meters devised by Dr. F. G. Benedict, the Director of 
the Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution 
of Washington and the leading experimenter in this 
field. Another important contribution made by Doctor 
Benedict to the methods of research upon energy re- 
quirements is the perfection of respiration apparatus 
by means of which the amount of oxidation taking 
place and of energy being used in the human body can 
be accurately determined by means of measurements of 
the oxygen consumed and the respiratory products 
given off, which measurements are now accomplished 
without necessitating the confinement of the man in the 
respiration calorimeter. 

So fruitful did this line of study prove that notwith- 
standing the considerable expense involved in making 


254 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


the experiments and the difficulty of securing funds for 
such work—since its more practical bearings could not 
be brought out in convincing fashion until the results 
of years of research could be brought together—it has 
been carried forward by the United States Department 
of Agriculture first under Professor Atwater and then 
under Dr. C. F. Langworthy, and also by the Carnegie 
Institution of Washington in its nutrition laboratory 
under Doctor Benedict, until now the energy require- 
ments of the normal human body for different ages, 
sizes, and conditions of work and rest are fairly ac- 
curately known. The number of calories expended 
per hour by an average-sized man under various con- 
ditions of daily living, industrial occupation, and ath- 
letic exercise is shown in Table 1, taken from the 
author’s “Chemistry of Food and Nutrition, Second 
Edition,’ in which may be found a fuller discussion of 
the achievements here sketched in bare outline. 


TABLE I 


Hourly expenditure of energy by average-sized man (70 kilograms 
or 154 pounds without clothing) under different conditions of ac- 
tivity. (Approximate averages only.) 


CALORIES 
Sleeping .. wl 4 OR Aen RAOUL seat Nise eee: 60-70 
Awake, lying still si ESE RY LU ed ee 70-85 
bitting*at reste es i ie 100 
Standing at rest: i069. (5640 peo. ene Tie 
Tailoring .. CN a a oo net ile IP a 135 
Typewriting rapidly! SHEP yap) Sil eee ae 140 
Bookbinding ._. ibe ine A A ee a OR 170 
“Light exercise” (bicycle ergometer) [fi/s) 9 ee cee 170 
Shoemaking . oe OE ee i ae ee 180 


Walking slowly (about 23 miles per hour)*"*. 9). :.3m 200 


CHEMISTRY AND FOOD 255 


CALORIES 
RENCE OUP MMe Ope ica iki vast eink Sle Me 240 
ie ST ale a RR Se eee 240 
RMIUaINtiNng sh ety et, ee Ee Re 240 
“Active exercise” (bicycle ergometer) . . . . . 290 
Walking actively (about 3% miles per hour). . . . 300 
Stoneworking hr WR al) VANE AAERINe 400 
“Severe exercise” (bicycle ergometer) . . . . . 450 
Cres eoterein Mw awry BY tee le 480 
Running (about 5} miles per hour) . . . . . . 500 
“Very severe exercise” (bicycle ergometer) . . . . 600 


This exact quantitative knowledge of the energy 
values of foods and energy requirements in nutrition 
now forms the basis of all sound practical work in food 
chemistry and human nutrition—whether it be a prob- 
lem of an individual or a family, a nation or a whole 
group of nations. During the World War the food 
crops and the food needs of America and the Allies were 
pooled and apportioned on the basis of calories; and 
every individual who wishes to purchase food economic- 
ally begins his or her planning by deciding first upon 
the level of expenditure which is best expressed in terms 
of the number of calories which must be bought with 
a cent, or the number of cents which may be spent per 
1000 calories of total food obtained. 

Tue Nutritive EFFICIENCIES OF Foop PROTEINS.— 
Protein has long occupied a prominent place in studies 
of food and nutrition and during the past decade much 
new interest has been attracted to this factor in food 
value by the discovery that the different proteins found 
in foods may, when taken separately, show very differ- 
ent efficiencies in nutrition. 

Dr. Thomas B. Osborne of the Connecticut Agricul- 


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256 


CHEMISTRY AND FOOD 26% 


tural Experiment Station and Professor Lafayette B. 
Mendel of Yale are the leaders in this field of science 
and their successful correlation of the chemical differ- 
ences among proteins with their nutritive functions and 
efficiencies is one of the great achievements of modern 
science. QOnly a hint of it can be given here. When 
only one protein was fed at a time, along with 
mixtures of other foodstuffs known to be adequate to 
all other nutritive requirements, it was found that some 
proteins are adequate to support normal growth, others 
support maintenance but little if any growth, while still 
others always fail even to permit the animal to maintain 
his weight. A photograph of a rat whose growth had 
been practically suspended by feeding with a diet good 
in all other respects but containing gliadin as sole pro- 
tein is shown in Figure 6 along with photographs, taken 
at the same focal distance, of normal rats, one of the 
same age, and another of the same weight, as the rat 
which had been thus stunted. 

At first thought, therefore, it may seem surprising 
that the Inter-Allied Scientific Food Commission while 
setting standards for food needs in terms of calories 
declared it unnecessary to set standards for protein on 
the ground that a food supply of any ordinary character 
and sufficiently abundant to meet the calorie (energy) 
requirement can be trusted to furnish adequate protein 
without special planning. The justification for this 
view is found in two facts: (1) the quantities of protein 
actually required for healthy nutrition have been found 
by much careful research to be considerably smaller 
_ than formerly supposed; (2) the differences in nutritive 


258 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


efficiency shown by certain individual proteins taken 
singly do not imply any great danger that the daily food 
will furnish inefhicient protein, because the articles of 
food which we actually use contain many kinds of pro- 
tein and these different proteins supplement each other. 
To explain this fully would require too long a discussion 
of the individual amino acids of which the proteins are 
composed. 

THe MINERAL ELEMENTS AND VITAMINS OF Foops.— 
Besides the five chemical elements of which simple pro- 
teins are composed, about a dozen more are now known 
to be essential to human nutrition; and besides the 
chemically known organic foodstuffs at least three other 
organic substances, vitamins A, B, and C, are also nec- 
essary. Space does not permit the discussion here of 
even the more important of our recent advances in the 
study of the mineral elements of food, and the vitamins 
need not be further discussed in this chapter since they 
are treated elsewhere in this volume by Doctor Eddy. 
It must, however, be emphasized that the recently 
developed knowledge of the nutritive importance of 
the mineral elements and vitamins and of the very un- 
even distribution of these dietary essentials among the 
different articles and types of foods has greatly clarified 
our ideas of food values. For progress in this line of 
study we are greatly indebted to McCollum and Sim- 
monds, formerly of the University of Wisconsin and 
now of the Johns Hopkins University. It was for- 
merly customary to speak as though dietaries could be 
“balanced” by a consideration of protein, fat, and car- 
bohydrate, whereas we now see clearly that the mineral 


CHEMISTRY AND FOOD 259 


elements and vitamins are at least equally important in 
this connection.: 

Taking account of energy values, protein content, 
mineral elements, and vitamins, we now group the chief 
articles and types of food according to their outstanding 
nutritional characteristics as follows: 

1. Grain products—economical sources of energy and 
protein but not satisfactory in their mineral and vitamin 
content. 

2. Sugars and fats—chiefly important from the nutri- 
tional standpoint as supplementary sources of energy, 
although some fats are also important as sources of the 
fat-soluble vitamin. 

3. Meats, including fish and poultry—rich in protein 
or fat or both, but showing, in general, the same mineral 
and vitamin deficiencies as do the grains. 

4. Fruits and vegetables—varying greatly in their 
protein and energy values but very important as sources 
of mineral elements and vitamins. 

5. Milk—important as source of energy, protein, 
mineral elements, and vitamins; the most efficient of all 
foods in making good the deficiencies of the grains and 
in ensuring the all-round adequacy of the diet. (See 
Fig. 6.) 

Fruits, vegetables, and milk are now seen to have 
much higher food values than were hitherto known, be- 
cause they serve (as meats, sweets, and most fats do not) 
to make good the mineral and vitamin deficiencies of the 
breadstuffs and other grain products. 

What we now call the newer knowledge of nutrition 
has been acquired within much less than a generation 


260 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


and as yet its practical application has but barely begun. 
The economic and hygienic benefits which we may rea- 
sonably anticipate are incalculable. We must remem- 
ber that the food crops produced by a country are not 
determined by nature (though writers often seem to 
imply this) but by the relative demands for the different 
things which any given farm can produce. The farmer 
in the long run will employ his land and labour and dis- 
pose of his crops in whatever way he finds most profit- 
able and this in turn will depend upon what the con- 
sumer demands in the market and the relative prices 
which he (or she) is willing to pay. As fast as consum- 
ers come to understand that fruits and vegetables and 
milk are worth more and that meats and sweets are 
worth less than has been hitherto supposed, and show 
this knowledge by shifting the emphasis of their de- 
mands from meats and sweets to fruits, vegetables, and 
milk, just so fast will more fruits, vegetables, and milk 
be produced because they will thus become the crops 
that pay the farmer best. 

For instance, when a normal American corn crop has 
been harvested and all the demands of human consump- 
tion, of industry, of seed for the next crop, and of feed 
for the farmers’ draft amimals have been met, there re- 
main in the hands of the farmers of the United States 
over a billion bushels of grain to be turned into extra 
meat or into extra milk according to which “the mar- 
ket,”’ that is, the consumer, makes it more profitable 
for the farmer to produce. Increase in the milk supply 
need not be entirely at the expense of a decreased meat 
production, but even if this were true the production of 








Courtesy of Drs. Osborne and Mendel, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington 


A. Rat 238, female. Age 140 days, weight 144 grams, which is normal for 
rat of same age as 240. 


B. Rat 240, female. Age 140 days, weight 55 grams. Same brood as Rat 
238. 
C. Rat 305. Age 36 days, weight 55 grams. Showing the appearance of a 
normal rat of same size as 240. 
A and B show the contrast between two rats of the same age, one of which 
(Rat 240) has been stunted. The lower two pictures afford a comparison 
between two rats of the same weight, but widely differing in age. The 
older, stunted rat, B, has not lost the characteristic proportions of the 
younger animal, C, 


Fic. 6. 





From The Vitamins, by Sherman and Smith, New York, 1922 
Fig. 7. Contrasting effects of equally simplified food supplies. These two rats 
were twin sisters and at weaning time were of equal size and equally healthy and 
vigorous. One was then fed with bread and apple, the other with bread and 
milk. The former remained stationary while the latter grew to five times the 
initial weight. The bread was identical in the two diets and the apple was of as 
good-quality as the milk. It cannot be supposed that the apple had injured the 
rat inasmuch as this rat had survived others of the same litter which received 
bread alone or bread and meat. ‘The difference in result was due to the superi- 
ority of the milk over the apple as a nutritional supplement of bread. In the 
case of the rat thus stunted by confining to a diet of bread and apple, as in most 
cases of human malnutrition, the fault of the diet was partly in its vitamin con- 
tent and partly in other factors, conspicuously in this case a deficiency of cal- 
cium and phosphorus. (From Sherman, Rouse, Allen and Woods, 1921, by 

permission of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.) 


CHEMISTRY AND FOOD 261 


milk could be doubled by decreasing the meat supply 
only one third. ‘Two thirds of our present meat supply 
would give us a larger per-capita meat consumption 
than any European country, even Great Britain, has 
ever enjoyed in modern times—in all probability quite 
as much as is good for us; while to double the milk 
supply of the United States would undoubtedly mean a 
tremendous gain in the well-being of the people. 

Even if our present milk supply be regarded as ade- 
quate, we now have evidence that a more liberal supply 
would be better. 

ADEQUATE VeERsus Optimum Foop Suppity.—The 
space assigned for this paper being nearly exhausted, 
let us conclude it with a brief account of a current in- 
vestigation demonstrating the fact that through our 
present knowledge of food chemistry, a food supply al- 
ready adequate may still be capable of improvement 
with corresponding gain in health and vigour. 

In developing and applying the newer knowledge of 
food chemistry in our work at Columbia University, we 
have not been satisfied to stop with adequacy of nutri- 
tion. We have sought to find and to show how a food 
supply which is already adequate may be made still 
better so that it will support a higher degree of health. 

The Century Dictionary defines health as: “Sound- 
ness of body; that condition of a living organism and 
of its various parts and functions which conduces to 
eficient and prolonged life. . . . Health implies 
also, physiologically, the ability to produce offspring 
fitted to live long and perform efficiently the ordinary 
functions of their species.” 


262 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


We are somewhat accustomed to quantitative ratings 
of soundness and efficiency and much more so to data 
of growth rates, birth rates, and statistics of duration of 
life. In human experience so many factors may enter 
to influence health in the course of a lifetime that it is 
hard to separate and measure the effects of food alone. 
But this can be done with laboratory animals of rapid 
growth and early maturity like the rat, and in such ex- 
periments it is possible to determine under conditions 
uniform in all other respects the influence of food upon 
the various factors of health comprised in the definition 
just quoted. 

Among the recent findings of nutrition experiments 
carried through successive generations of such labora- 
tory animals the results of which are, I believe, directly 
and fully applicable to the problem of the attainment 
of the highest degree of human health, is the fact that 
starting with a diet already adequate we may by im- 
provement of the diet induce a higher degree of health 
and vigour. ‘This has been rather strikingly shown in 
experiments with rats in which different families from 
the same stock have been kept for successive genera- 
tions upon two uniform food supplies: the first diet 
adequate as shown by the fact that it has supported 
healthy growth, development, and reproduction in 
some families for no less than six generations; the 
second diet differing from the first merely in that it 
contains a higher proportion of milk. These experi- 
ments are still in progress but certain results are already 
clear. 

Among the evidences of a higher degree of health 


CHEMISTRY AND FOOD 263 


which we find to result from increasing the proportion 
of milk in a diet already adequate are the following: 


1. More rapid growth. 

2. More efficient growth, 1. e. a greater gain in weight 
for each 1000 calories of food consumed. 

3. Somewhat larger average size at all ages, though 
the difference in size 1s not striking and probably 
not of great importance. 

4. Greater vigour as indicated by earlier maturity, 
larger capacity for reproduction, and greater 
success in rearing the young. 

s. The period of full vigour was prolonged and the 
proportion of families dying without issue was 
greatly reduced. 

6. The weight of the mother was better maintained 
while suckling her young and the young grew and 
developed better during the suckling period. 

7. Both infant mortality and the death rate after 
infancy were reduced, and this notwithstanding 
the fact that the females had borne and suckled 
more young. 


There is no reason to doubt that all these findings, 
as thus stated in qualitative terms, will apply equally in 
human experience and that a higher degree of health 
will follow an improvement in the dietary of the in- 
dividual or in the food supply of the community, such 
as an increase in the proportion of milk, even where the 
original dietary was already adequate according to all 
current standards. 


264 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


This does not mean, as the sensationally minded 
would have it, that by the use of a “‘super-diet”’ we can 
produce a “super-race.”’ It does mean that by the right 
use of our present knowledge and of our food supplies 
we can in future bring to a much larger percentage of 
our people that full measure of health and efficiency 
which only the more fortunate now enjoy. 

May not such results of scientific investigation func- 
tion somewhere in the curriculum of every school? 


GuIDE To FuRTHER READING 


“Economics of the Household’, by B.R. Andrews. (Macmillan, 
New York.) 1923. 

“The Nutrition of Man,” by R.H. Chittenden. (Stokes, New 
York.) 1907. 

“The Science of Nutrition,” by G. Lusk. New Third Edition. 
(Saunders, Philadelphia.) 1920. 

“The Cost of Living,’ by E. H. Richards. Third Edition. 
(Wiley, New York.) 1905. | 

“Feeding the Family,” by M.S. Rose. (Macmillan, New York.) 
1916. 

*“Laboratory Handbook for Dietetics,” by M. S. Rose. Second 
Edition. (Macmillan, New York.) 1921. 

“Chemistry of Food and Nutrition,” by H. C. Sherman. Second 
Edition. (Macmillan, New York.) 1918. 

“Food Products,” by H.C. Sherman. (Macmillan, New York.) 
IgI4. 

“The Vitamins,” by H. C. Sherman and S. L. Smith. (Chemical 
Catalogue Company, New York.) 1922. 

“Elementary Household Chemistry,” by J. F. Snell. (Macmillan, 
New York.) 1914. 

“Dietetics for High Schools,” by Florence Willard and L. H. 
Gillett. (Macmillan, New York.) 1920. 


OUR DAILY BREAD AND VITAMINS 
By WALTER H. Eppy, Pu.D. 


Professor of Physiological Chemistry, Columbia University 


NE of the outstanding events in nutrition of the 
past decade has been the evolution of the 
vitamin hypothesis. Unfortunately the appli- 

cation of this hypothesis to the needs of the layman has 
provided the food and nostrum purveyors with material 
for advertising and exaggeration, and it is now essen- 
tial that the cold facts in the case be presented to the 
public if we are to avoid the evils that have arisen from 
this quackery. In this chapter I wish to outline briefly 
the significant steps that have led to our knowledge of 
vitamins, the relation of this knowledge to our previous 
conceptions of right feeding, the methods which are used 
to evaluate the vitamin content of foodstuffs, and some 
simple rules for guidance in food selection in view of the 
new discovery. 

Previous to 1906 the study of nutrition by laboratory 
methods has provided important basal principles for 
guidance in food selection. ‘These principles are as 
fundamental and basic to-day as they were then, and 
the first fact to emphasize is that the vitamin discover- 
ies have merely provided knowledge with which to 
supplement these facts, not to supersede or overthrow 


them. 
265 


266 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


The basal principles to which I refer may be sum- 
marized rather briefly. 

First, food is fuel. Like coal the amount of energy 
that a given food will produce can be measured in heat 
units and that is all there is to the calorie evaluation 
idea. ‘The calorie is simply a unit to measure with, like 
the inch or the centimetre. Thanks to accurate instru- 
ments and chemical analyses, it is now easily possible to 
determine on the one hand just how many calories of 
energy you or I need to run our human machine for 
twenty-four hours, and on the other hand just how much 
of the various kinds of foods we must consume to pro- 
duce these calories. 

But even though a foodstuff measures up to our 
calorie needs the body requires other qualities. To 
produce energy alone we can use starches, sugars, or 
fats, but to rebuild the living cellular matter (proto- 
plasm) we require not only these foods but also others 
rich in nitrogen. The chemist calls starches and sugars, 
“carbohydrates.” He calls the fatty substances, 
“‘lipins,’’ and to the nitrogenous foodstuffs he has ap- 
plied the term “protein.” For all of these collectively 
he uses the term “organic nutrients.’’ Chemical analy- 
ses easily give the proportions of carbohydrates, fats, 
and proteins in any foodstuff and this information 1s 
now available to the public in the form of tables issued 
by the Government and to be found in the many 
standardized texts on dietetics. If the ordinary in- 
dividual will so select his foodstuffs as to provide fifty 
grams (about two ounces) of protein per day and to 
meet the calorie needs, he has satisfied most of what we 


VITAMINS 267 


call the per diem nutrient needs of the human machine. 

Aside from the organic nutrients present in a food, 
however, it has been found that the body also requires 
certain mineral salts. The manufacture of bone, for 
example, is a matter of lime deposition and we are learn- 
ing that to deposit this lime as bone the body requires, 
not only lime salts, but a certain amount of phosphorus. 
Again the prevention of various bad conditions lumped 
collectively under the name of acidosis requires that our 
blood be kept nearly neutral in reaction and the carbo- 
nates and phosphates play an important part in this regu- 
lation. Mineral salts, then, constitute a fourth nutrient. 

We are accustomed, then, to say that the second 
principle for guidance in food selection is to make sure 
that the foodstuffs contain the proper kinds and 
amounts of nutrients, including under this term car- 
bohydrates, fats, proteins, and mineral salts. 

The next discovery was the demonstration that pro- 
teins differ in nutritive value and that not only must 
the body have its fifty grams of protein per day, but it 
is extremely fussy as to the kind of protein it demands. 
As a result of the studies of many chemists working in 
this field we know that proteins are to be thought of as 
mosaics made up of separate chemical pieces and that 
there are some eighteen of these pieces, nearly all of 
which are absolutely necessary to make a_body- 
satisfying protein. “These pieces are known chemically 
as amino acids, but the principle involved is covered if 
we say that not only must we be sure of the amount of 
protein, but we must also assure ourselves as to its 
quality or make-up. 


268 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


There are also foods which were originally despised 
because of their poor showing in the respects referred to 
above, which are now valued for another cause. The 
normal activity of our digestion demands a certain 
bulk to our food mixture, even though that bulk is se- 
cured by materials which are classed as indigestible. 
It is of course obvious that no matter how rich a food 
may be in the qualities outlined above, the nutrients 
must be of such a nature that the digestive juices can 
act upon them and so change them that they will pass 
freely from the digestive organs to the blood. If not 
they will fail to reach the muscle, nerve, skin, bone, and 
other structures they are intended to nourish. This 
property, then, demands that our foods be digestible, 
but if we attempted to feed a man on completely digesti- 
ble mixtures his stomach and intestines would in time 
become atrophied. In other words we must have pres- 
ent a certain amount of indigestible matter to provide 
bulk and stimulation to the lining of the digestive tract. 
The cellulose which forms the coating of starch grains, 
the connective tissue that forms the indigestible portions 
of meats, etc., are examples of such substances. We 
speak of them as roughage and they are mechanical 
necessities of our food mixtures which must not be 
neglected if we are to avoid constipation and like ills. 
In general, then, while our foods must contain digestible 
nutrients they should also carry a certain amount of 
indigestible roughage. 

Finally the form of the food airered is important. 
Eating is to a high extent a psychological affair. If 
the food is presented in an unpalatable form the body 


VITAMINS 269 


can utilize it, but in time the mental antipathy reacts 
physiologically and the individual becomes badly 
affected thereby. It 1s worth-while always to pay at- 
tention to palatability. 

Osborne’s and Mendel’s studies on the significance of 
protein quality were conducted between 1908 and IgII 
and actually published in 1911. At that time the 
principles mentioned above were supposed to have 
completely expressed the basis for guidance in food se- 
lection. ‘To illustrate these principles let us consider 
for a moment the composition of a foodstuff which is 
universally recognized as a perfect type of food, milk. 
In the following table are listed the chemical facts which 
are necessary to establish the standing of this foodstuff 
in the light of the knowledge of 1906-1911. 


THE VALUE OF MILK AS A FOODSTUFF 


(a) One quart of milk will produce about 700 calories of energy. 
If a baby’s need were 700 calories per day one quart of milk would 
therefore meet this need without resource to other food. A man 
requiring 3,000 calories per day would, of course, need to consume 
a very large amount of liquid if he lived on milk alone and hence 
usually prefers to supplement milk with other less watery prod- 
ucts. 


(b) The nutrient content of ordinary cow’s milk is as follows: 


Protein of good quality 3.3% 


Lipins 4.0% 
Carbohydrates 5.0% 
Mineral salts 0.7% 
Water 87.0% 
Wt. of one quart 34.4 OZ. or 2.15 lbs. 


Amino acid content—All the essential ones 


It is also digestible and palatable. 


270 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


Such tabulation as the above is perhaps sufficient index 
of how to test out any foodstuffs concerning which we 
have similar data. 


In our introduction we called attention to one view- 
point which we wish to reémphasize here. ‘The vi- 
tamin hypothesis has not changed any of the basal 
principles by which we judge food value but merely re- 
quires us to supplement that knowledge by an additional 
criterion. How has this supplementary material been 
derived? What led to the vitamin hypothesis? 

Briefly, two lines of investigation that at first may 
seem to have no relationship. First, the prevalence in 
certain parts of the world of a disease whose cause was 
unknown and whosetoll of human lives justified scientific 
study. Second, the attempt of the nutrition students 
to prove that if we ate foods which met all the require- 
ments cited above we would get normal growth, and the 
failure of the experiments to demonstrate this. 

Since the word vitamin itself was coined as a result of 
pursuit of the first line of investigation we will consider 
that side of the story first. In the Orient, especially 
in East Asia, where the diet consisted largely of fish and 
white or polished rice, a peculiar disease often mani- 
fested itself to which was given the name beri-beri. 
This disease has been known for hundreds of years. 
Outside of the Orient the second greatest area was Brazil 
and the disease was also known, though less extensively, 
in many other districts of the world. The idea that this 
disease was of dietary origin seems to have first sug- 
gested itself about 1878-1880. In 1882 Takaki pro- 


VITAMINS 271 


posed to change the diet of the Japanese Navy from 
rice diet and to add meat, bread, fruit, and vegetables. 
The result was an immediate reduction in cases of beri- 
beri. Rice then was early indicated as one of the 
offending articles of diet in the production of this dis- 
ease. It would take too long to follow out all the in- 
vestigations that were developed after the idea that 
beri-beri was due to a certain dietary deficiency first 
appeared. We will mention only a few of the most 
important. Of these, the investigations directed or 
personally conducted by Eijkman, a Dutch investi- 
gator in Java, deserve special attention. ‘lo him we 
owe two very important contributions. ‘The following 
table collected by Vordermann at E1jkman’s suggestion 
from Javanese prison cases shows how rice was first 
convicted of being a casual agent. 


NO. OF 
NO. OF RATIO OF 
KINDS OF RICE IN PRISONERS 
BERI-BERI | BERI-BERI 
DIETS FED THESE 
CASES CASES 
DIETS 
DAmrenrice mys | eiitee lcs 150,266 4,201 1:39 
Rice with partial silver skin 35,082 85 1:416 
Unpolished rice... |. . 96,530 9 1:10725 


“A glance at this data shows how attention was fo- 
cused not only on rice but on the polishing of rice, or 
“silver skin,” as the carrier of protection against the 
disease. In 1896 Eijkman made a very important ac- 
cidental discovery. He found that chickens fed upon 
the remains of foods used in a hospital for beri-beri died 


272 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


of a disease which he called “‘polyneuritis gallinarum” 
and recognized as similar to human beri-beri. With 
chickens as experimental animals he was then able to 
supplement his medical investigations and to demon- 
strate that beri-ber1 was brought about in the Java 
cases by long-continued consumption of white rice and 
that the act of polishing removes an important con- 
stituent of the rice. The Dutch investigators, how- 
ever, failed to see the full significance of their findings. 
Eijkman himself believed that the starch of the rice 
grain gave rise to toxins or poisons which acted on the 
nervous system and that this toxic action was prevented 
by material in the silver skin or, as he later showed, in 
the pericarp of the grain. The foundations laid by 
Ei1jkman stimulated many other workers to follow up 
his lead and his greatest contribution was in providing 
a test animal in which could be induced the disease and 
with which diets could be tested quantitatively. 

The search for the preventive substance to which rice 
polishings owed their beri-beri protecting power, how- 
ever, began actively with Eijkman’s contribution in 
1897. Other foodstuffs were studied and Grijns found 
certain beans to carry this protective substance. 
Schaumann extended the list of curative substances to 
include yeast. Other workers then sought to determine 
the value of the curative material itself. It was thought 
at one time that phosphorus compounds were the re- 
sponsible factors. In his book, ‘‘The Vitamines,” 
Casimir Funk, the author of the term vitamin, sum- 
marizes the situation up to the time of introduction of 
the vitamin theory (1911) as follows: 


VITAMINS 273 


To summarize our knowledge of the chemical nature of the active 
principle prior to the introduction of the vitamin theory (till 1911) 
the following may be set down with certainty: 

1. The substance is soluble in water, alcohol, and acidified 
alcohol. 

2. The substance is dialysable. 

3. The substance is destroyed at 130° c. 

When we took up the question in IgII it was not known whether 
the active substance was organic or inorganic, in nature, whether or 
not it was a constituent of proteins, nucleins, or phosphatides. It 
was not certain that we were not dealing with a ferment, nor was it 
known if the substance belonged to some chemical group already 
described, or to some new unknown class of substances. 


Casimir Funk began his researches in this: field 
shortly prior to 1911. He set himself the task of isolat- 
ing the anti-beri-beri substance from its sources and the 
establishment of its chemical identity. In combina- 
tion with Cooper, Funk had shown that when pressed 
yeast was boiled with 20 per cent. sulfuric acid for 
twenty-four hours and the sulfuric acid completely 
removed with baryta, the evaporated filtrate still ex- 
hibited marked anti-beri-beri qualities. This stability 
in the presence of an acid led him to believe that the 
substance must be an organic base. With this assump- 
tion he began a systematic investigation of large 
amounts of rice polishings, the results of which he pub- 
lished in 1911. In testing his fractions he made use of 
pigeons which had been shown, like chickens, to be 
particularly susceptible to this disease when fed on pol- 
ished rice. By careful fractioning Funk was able to 
isolate from 100 pounds of rice polishings less than 
2-100ths of an ounce of needle-shaped crystals which 
melted sharply at 233° F. and were highly curative. 


274. SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


Analysis of these crystals showed the presence of nitro- 
gen. Hence,ina later publication Funk christened these 
crystals the anti-beri-beri vita-amine or “vitamine.” 
Amine has long designated to chemists a substance 
basic in action and with a nitrogen content. Since the 
crystals prevented loss of life it was natural to call them 
the life (vita) amine. It is no discredit to Funk that 
later, largely through his own studies and partly 
through the work of others, the crystals which he be- 
lieved to be pure vitamin were found to consist mainly 
of something else. “To-day we have not yet succeeded in 
isolating the pure substance but Funk’s researches laid 
a basis upon which all fractioning attempts have been 
based. ‘The later discovery of other types of these sub- 
stances developed a controversy in which he was criti- 
cised for his selection of a name but none of the substi- 
tutes proved more acceptable and his term is now in 
universal use. Drummond suggested recently that since 
the presence of nitrogen had not been demonstrated in 
what we now know as vitamin A and C, we drop the 
final e in the word and call them vitamins. Funk him- 
self rather deprecates this change but the suggestion has 
been generally accepted by workers in this field. 

Had the vitamin theory concerned solely this oriental 
disease and its prevention, we would not have had the 
extended public interest that exists in the subject to- 
day. ‘To see how this has come about we must turn to 
the second line of investigations in 1906. Hopkins and 
his pupils in England had arrived at an interesting re- 
sult in connection with their attempts to prove the ade- 
quacy of the food evaluation principles which we have 


VITAMINS 276 


listed. As a result of feeding mice on food mixtures 
composed of purified nutrients and meeting all the views 
expressed in our qualifications for a perfect food, the 
animals failed to grow. Hopkins expressed his views at 
the time as follows: 


But further, no animal can live upon a mixture of pure protein, 
fat, and carbohydrate, and even when the necessary inorganic ma- 
terial is carefully supplied, the animal still cannot flourish. 

The field is almost unexplored, only it is certain that there are many 
minor factors in all diets of which the body takes account. 


In 1912, Hopkins first published the evidence on 
which he based these prophetic utterances. In this 
paper he demonstrated that a small quantity of milk 
contains something other than purified nutrient sub- 
stances of suitable quality, which is necessary to rat 
growth. He suggested the name “‘accessory factor”’ 
for this substance. 

In 1911 appeared the classical work of Osborne and 
Mendel in demonstration of the significance of the 
amino acids for maintenance and growth. ‘They also 
used rat-feeding experiments and, like Hopkins, soon 
found that rats fed on purified substances alone would 
not grow. They believed that they had found an ac- 
cessory factor in milk, and by removing the protein 
from the milk obtained a factor which they called 
“Protein-free milk,’ and which, when added to their 
otherwise adequate food mixtures, actually promoted 
growth. They thought at first that the mineral con- 
tent of the milk was the answer, but when they care- 
fully analyzed their milk and substituted for natural 


276 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


protein-free milk an artificial mixture built of the salts 
in the proportions indicated in the analysis, it failed to 
produce the same effect. 

Stepp, a worker in Germany, had been attracted to 
the problem by the researches in protein quality and 
on the hypothesis that fats also might differ in quality 
experimented along this line with rats. He first demon- 
strated ‘that bread and milk constitute a growth- 
producing diet for rats. He then extracted his bread- 
and-milk mixture with ether and found the residue 
inadequate for growth. This result seemed confirmatory 
of his viewpoint. But when he added to the residue 
purified fat which he assumed was what had been re- 
moved by the ether extraction, no growth resulted. 
On the other hand, the residue obtained by evaporation 
of his ether extract when mingled with the other residue 
produced normal growth. Stepp failed to grasp the 
entire significance of these experiments at the time, but 
he did provide additional evidence that milk contains 
something that is neither protein nor fat and which is 
essential to growth. 

In 1906 an experiment was begun at the Wisconsin 
Experiment Station which was planned by S. M. Bab- 
cock and carried out by Hart and Humphrey. In the 
later stages of this experiment McCollum and Steenbock 
cooperated. The object of this experiment was to 
determine whether rations for cattle, so made up as to 
be alike so far as chemical analysis would show, but 
derived each from a single plant, would prove to be of 
equal nutritive value for growth and the ma ntenance 
of vigour. The plants selected were wheat, corn, and 


VITAMINS 277 


oats and a control group of a ration of the same chemical 
composition, but blended of corn, oats, and wheat. 
Young heifer calves were used, weighing 350 pounds 
and as near alike as possible. ‘They were given all the 
salt they cared for, and allowed to exercise in an open lot 
free of vegetation, but the diet was absolutely restricted 
aside from salt (NaCl) to the particular ration. Dif- 
ferences failed to develop until after a year or more 
of time had elapsed. At that time the corn-fed animals 
were in much superior condition to all the others, even 
the control group. The wheat-fed ones were in the 
worst condition of all. Body condition, milk produc- 
tion, and the bearing of young paralleled one another in 
demonstrating the distinction between the diets. © 
This experiment marked the entrance of McCollum 
into a field which was to make him one of the important 
contributors to the vitamin hypothesis. He began 
the study of the cause of the failure of animals to grow 
on mixtures of purified foodstuffs in 1907 and employed 
the domestic rat as the experimental animal. In 1909, 
McCollum introduced a new feature by seeking to in- 
crease the variety of foodstuffs in the diet as far as 
possible, but every organic component of the diet was 
required to be pure and free from phosphorus in any 
form, practically the only source of phosphorus in the 
diet being finely ground tricalcium phosphate. The 
paper in which the results were published is important, 
for it reported the first successful growth experiments 
with a food supply which was at the time considered to 
be composed only of foodstuffs which could be named. 
It seemed to demonstrate the adequacy of the views 


278 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


set forth in our basal principles for food selection and 
that the failure of animals fed upon purified food mix- 
tures such as those used by Hopkins and Osborne and 
Mendel is due to lack of palatability and consequent 
failure of the animals to eat enough. McCollum’s food 
mixture was made up of the proteins edestin from hemp 
seed and zein from corn. With these were given corn- 
starch, wheat starch, milk sugar, glucose, cane sugar, 
butter fat, bacon fat, and cholesterol and a salt mixture. 
The striking result was normal growth. In _ 1Igog, 
Osborne and Mendel began their work to evaluate the 
importance of the protein components of the diet. In- 
stead of duplicating the diet of McCollum they substi- 
tuted a simple mixture consisting of milk-casein, starch, 
lard, and a salt mixture recommended by Rohmann. 
These animals, unlike McCollum’s, failed to grow and 
by carefully measuring the food intake it was proved 
that this failure was not due to lack of appetite. At 
that time no one was able to see any important chemical 
difference between the two diets. But by substituting 
for 28 per cent. of the diet the milk residue which they 
called protein-free milk, they obtained growth. 

It would take too long to follow out all the lines of 
this experimentation. Out of it came the important 
information which has brought us recognition of the 
differences in protein quality. But from the vitamin 
viewpoint it was still more important. As a result of 
McCollum’s study of his own diet he finally demon- 
strated the presence of a hitherto unsuspected factor in 
his butter fat that is absent in lard. He also found that 
egg yolk contained this substance. At the time of this 


VITAMINS 279 


discovery he believed that this was the key to the differ- 
ence between his diets and those of Osborne and Mendel 
and he christened this new substance “unidentified 
dietary factor fat-soluble A.” 

But there was another factor in the mixtures en- 
tirely unsuspected by either McCollum or Osborne and 
Mendel at the time. ‘This factor was present in the 
protein-free milk and also in McCollum’s lactose. The 
publication of Funk’s work and his vitamin suggestions 
set the investigators on a new trail. McCollum ob- 
jected to the idea that his fat factor was Funk’s vitamin. 
Funk tried to show that the factor in butter fat was his 
vitamin substance. ‘The literature of 1912-1915 is full 
of data bearing on this phase of the subject. Osborne 
and Mendel were able to confirm the presence of a stim- 
ulatory factor in certain fats as McCollum contended, 
but still believed that their protein-free milk supplied 
something else equally important. All the world 
knows to-day that the truth was that two vitamins were 
present. McCollum’s butter fat did contain one, and 
we now call it vitamin A, or fat-soluble A. The one 
in his lactose and in the milk was proven to be appar- 
ently the anti-beri-beri type, and to reconcile the no- 
menclature it was listed as Funk’s vitamin or “uniden- 
tified dietary factory water-soluble B.”’ 

By the time this tangle was ordered, the field of in- 
vestigators had increased enormously and_ universal 
recognition was now given to the idea that in addition to 
nutrients of proper kind and quality, animals require 
for their growth and maintenance at least two other 
chemical substances hitherto unsuspected. It really 


280 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


didn’t matter much what these were called. We might 
have adopted Hopkins’ term, “‘accessory food factors,” 
or McCollum’s phrases, “unidentified dietary factors 
fat-soluble A and water-soluble B,” but Funk’s term at 
least provided brevity and by common consent these 
factors have become vitamins A and B. 

It now became fashionable to suspect diseases of 
hitherto unknown cause to be matters of vitamin de- 
ficiency. Scurvy had been known for years and its 
prevention by the use of lime juice had earned a name 
for the British mercantile navy of “lime juicers.”’ Two 
workers in Europe, Holst and Frohlich, published in 
the years 1907-1912 a series of brilliant studies which 
appeared to demonstrate this disease to be due to the 
absence of a specific vitamin, unlike the anti-beri-beri 
type and carried in abundance by substances such as 
lemon and orange juice. McCollum, however, re- 
ported in 1918 certain observations on experimental 
scurvy in guinea pigs which seemed to him to prove that 
this disease was explicable as a result of the absorption 
of toxic products from the intestines of the animals. A 
new controversy arose. Partisans of the two views 
arose also, but in time the truth confirmed the view- 
point of Holst and Frohlich and vitamin C was added 
to the list. This matter was barely settled when a new 
controversy began, this time over the causes of rickets. 
Mellanby in England, working for the British Medical 
Research Committee, arrived at a viewpoint which the 
Committee published and to which they gave their 
support. This view was in brief that vitamin A, in 
which cod-liver oil is especially rich, is not only a growth 


VITAMINS 281 


factor and a preventive of eye disease as was already 
demonstrated, but was also the factor which determined 
the proper deposition of lime salts in bone formation. 
Mellanby believed it to be entitled to the term anti- 
rachitic vitamin. The whole problem of rickets and its 
prevention was then reopened. Much valuable new 
data developed. It was found possible to cure rickets 
by regulation of the phosphorus in the diet, by using 
the ultra-violet ray or direct sunlight and by the use of 
cod-liver oil in the diet. The vitamin interest, how- 
ever, centred about the use of the oil. Butter fat, 
known to be rich in A vitamin, was shown to be value- 
less as a preventive. On the other hand cod-liver oil 
was shown to be many times richer in A than butter 
fat and it was felt that perhaps Mellanby was right and 
that the distinction was a matter of quantity in the 
dosage. In August, 1922, however, McCollum pub- 
lished a series of studies which seem to leave no other 
conclusion than that cod-liver oil owes its antirachitic 
power to a new vitamin, that the antirachitic vitamin 
is not vitamin A. For this McCollum suggests the 
term D unless it shall be shown conclusively that vita- 
min B is actually composed of at least two factors. 
Funk has already offered evidence that the B concen- 
trates contain a factor which is essential to the cure of 
beri-beri and another factor that seems to have a 
specific power in stimulating yeast growth. For the 
latter he had already suggested the term vitamin D. 
McCollum raises the question as to whether we should 
include in the vitamin series other factors than those 
proved of significance in mammalian nutrition. ‘This 


282 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


matter is purely a question of nomenclature and we 
have at least satisfactory evidence to-day of five sub- 
stances which were hitherto unrecognized in dietary 
demands and which we consider entitled to names. 
The list is probably still far from complete. Very re- 
cently Evans and Bishop have shown that when rats 
are fed on diets adequate in every known way and in- 
cluding vitamins A, B, and C, they are often infertile. 
The addition of lettuce to the diet prevents this sterility. 
While the distribution of this fertility factor is still to be 
worked out it is certain that they are dealing with a 
hitherto unrecognized factor, perhaps the sixth vitamin. 
These new substances so far as present knowledge is 
concerned are all alike in being potent in very small 
amounts and in defying chemical separation or identi- 
fication except by physiological effects. It may well be 
that when isolated in free form they will show similar 
structure, but at present we have no data on which to 
base even a reasonable guess in this direction. 


The review preceding is essential to make clear ex- 
actly the relation of the vitamin discovery to proper 
food evaluation. Enough experimentation has been 
carried out to date to show that these factors are wide- 
spread in nature. The following table from the 
author’s Vitamin Manual will give a little idea of this 
widespread distribution: 


VITAMINS 283 


SourRCcE OF VITAMINS 


Meats: 
Beef heart . +. a ? 
Brains nagar LPIA +f 
Codfish +- ae ? 
Fish roe -}- fi ? 
Herring . ++ ae > 
Kidney ++ ce 
Lean muscle O O 4? 
Liver + Te ey) 
Pancreas O reste 
Pig heart +f +. ? 

Vegetables: 
Beet root + + et 
Cabbage, fish tv +4--+ ATER i 2 ep a 
Carrots PP ee seh pe Het ee 
Cauliflower . . ++ +++ fit 
(rr P 4-4-4 ? 
SPATE) sks!) fat a ae ? 
MpettUces hi es. q+ wae “Pe aber 
Ja ein ES a a ? +++ a Aa 
prarAmips hk)  L2\. +b ae Sere 
Reasiiresh)) |) .\'.. + ++ waa 
Potatoes oy. O ap are ++ 
Potatoes (sweet) . shitter ot ? 
Spinach At rane Tisanaw cechaste Patter 

Cereals: 
Magtey)) (... '). + +--+ ? 
Bread ental ; a af, 
Bread (whole frend) + ah ds ? 
a5 Se Brain obs ete ate ? 
Oats ao wt LS o 
Rice polished fe) O oO 
Rice (whole grain) fe +++ Oo 
Rye ne +++ o 


Corn embryo bie Bia lia 


284 SCIENCE 


FOODSTUFF 


Cereals—Continued: 
Corn (see maize) 
Malt extract 
Wheat bran 
Wheat embryo 
Wheat kernel 


Other seeds: 
Beans, navy 
Cotton seed 
Peanuts } 
Peas (dry) . 

Fruits: 

Apples . 
Bananas 
Grapefruit . 
Grape juice 
Grapes . 
Lemons . 
Limes 
Oranges 
Pears 
Raisins . 
Tomatoes 


Oils and fats: 
Beef fat 
Butter 
Cocoanut oil 
Cod-liver oil 
Corn oil 
Cotton seed oil 
Egg yolk fat 
Fish oils 
Lard 
Oleo, animal 
Oleo, vegetable 
Olive oil 
Pork fat 
Tallow . 


REMAKING THE WORLD 


++ 


++++- 
bb 


oP 


+4++-4 


es? 
B 


bas 
+e 


+++ 

+++ 
+ 
+ 


b+ 
+++ 


{++ 
+++ 


Os OZ OP OROROFCZOROT OSZOZOZORO 


OnOeO7O 


Oo 


x0 0. 0-0. O°O-05070-070 


1e) 


VITAMINS. 285 


Nuts: 
mamonas; 2). + ae 
Synestnt. oe) 1, a es ga 
Cocoanut . . . ++ fe 
English walnuts. +44 
PEEROL WC ot) 2 + 4. obs 
Dairy products: : 
SPREE es 1p.) 4.300 +++-+4+ O O 
Eeeese Arai. &) ke ++ +. > 
Condensed milk. ++ + O 
Berearteuiie rs) |r: ti: +4-+ + ? 
Oe ea crete “+E O 
Milk powder (skim) + Siye ees ae, 
Milk powder (whole) +++ Moh cat & ay, 
Milk whole. . . +--+ fevers tb 
Miscellaneous: 
Parauai. Vs). oh ep +++ ? 
Braversstpc..” )i 4". +4 Seo. ? 
a ey mesic 0 
amaarny 8) 8) 3). ++ +++ 
peeast cakes 1())". O 44+ O 





It will also serve to point an important viewpoint 
which needs special emphasis. When we select our 
daily diet now we must of course include our quota of 
vitamins. But in view of the small amounts essential, 
bear in mind that this selection can be made without 
going outside the usual list of foodstuffs. We need no 
pills or nostrums. ‘The slogan of a quart of milk a day 
for the growing child is still good advice in more than its 
original sense. In milk, vitamins A, B, C, and per- 
haps D, are present in abundance. Green vegetables 
and fruits supply the A and C lacking in a purely meat 


286 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


and cereal diet. Look to your green stuffs. But let 
us learn to pick our vitamins out of the food market and 
there will be no need to go to the druggist. 

A final word is perhaps desirable to explain the com- 
pilation of a table such as shown above. How is such 
information obtained? No other discovery emphasizes 
more strikingly the value of animal experimentation 
as a means of furthering human knowledge. Until 
Eijkman discovered that beri-beri could be induced in 
fowls, no tool was available for measuring quantita- 
tively the amounts of the anti-beri-beri vitamin in 
foodstuffs. The white rat has provided all the data 
for distribution figures in regard to vitamin A and much 
for B. To the guinea pig the race is indebted for the 
proof of presence and quantity distribution of vitamin 
C. If we can find an animal in which we can induce 
pellagra, that controversy may be cleared up. In 
brief, then, several methods of experimentation are 
now in universal use in the study of vitamin nature or 
distribution, but all are alike in principle. They all 
consist in either feeding to the experimental animal a 
diet lacking in a given factor and then attempting 
cure by addition of the foodstuff under investigation, 
or incorporating the foodstuff in the original diet in 
varying amounts and noting the prevention or lack of 
prevention of symptoms that follow. In all these diets 
the principles laid down in our original list are utilized 
and are essential if we are to be sure the results measure 
vitamin deficiency. 

We end then, as we began, with reiterating that the 
vitamin hypothesis has not destroyed old ideas about 


VITAMINS 287 


food selection, but merely extended our bases for se- 
lection. We continue to require calories, nutrients, 
proper protein quality, but to these we must now add 
vitamin content. Someone has compared vitamins 
to the spark in the gasolene engine. It does not replace 
the gas but makesit work. Soin the animal mechanism 
the fuel is food, but the food fails to function properly 
without its controlling vitamins. 


Guiwe To FurtTHEeR READING 


“The Vitamine Manual,” by Walter H. Eddy. (Williams & Wil- 
kins, Baltimore, Md.) 

“The Vitamines,” by Casimir Funk. (Williams & Wilkins, Bal- 
timore, Md.) : 

“The Vitamins,” by H.C. Sherman and S. L. Smith. (Chemi- 
cal Catalogue Co., New York City.) 

“The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition,” by E. V. McCollum. 
(Macmillan, New York City.) 

“Vital Factors of Foods,” by C. Ellis and A. L. McLeod. (D. Van 
Nostrand Co., New York City.) 

“Vitamins,” by Benj. Harrow. (E. P. Dutton, New York City.) 

“Scurvy Past and Present,” by A. F. Hess. (Lippincott’s, Phila- 
delphia, Pa.) 

“Deficiency Diseases,” by R. C. McCarrison. (Oxford Univ. 
Press.) 


Some Comprehensive Reviews: 


“The Vitamins,” by H. C. Sherman. Physiol. Reviews, 1921, 1, 
page 598. 

Report on the Present State of Knowledge Concerning Acces- 
sory Food Factors, British Medical Research Committee, pub. by H. 
M. Stationery Office, London. 

“The Vitamine, Bibliographic Review,” by W. H. Eddy. 4d- 
stracts Bacteriology, 1919, ili, page 313. 

“Vitamins,” by J. F. Lyman. Bull., vol. xvii, no. 3, of the 
Ohio State University Agricultural Extension Service. 


288 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 


“Newer Aspects of Some Nutritional Disorders,” by A. F. Hess. 
J. Am. Med. Assn., vol. 76, page 693. 

“The Etiology of Rickets,” by E. A. Park. Physiol. Reviews, 
1923, ill, page 106. 

“Vitamins in Canned Foods,” by E. F. Kohman. Nat’! Can- 
ners’ Asso. Bull. No. 19 L (1922). 

“The Present Status of Vitamins,” by K. Blunt. Journ. Home 
Economics, 1921, Xill, page 97. 


THE END 


INDEX 


Achievements and Obligations of 
Modern Science, 1 

Alcohol, 42 

Alfalfa Weevil, 197 

Alizarin, 61 

Alpha Particle, 81, 86 

American Chemical Society, 19 

American-Made Dyes, 71 } 

Angell, James R., VII 

Aniline Dyes, 51, 65 

Anthrax, 141, 143 

Ants, 203, 206 

Appleman, Charles O., 223 

Argon, 89 

Aromatic Compounds, 60 

Arsphenamine, 6 

Artificial Colours in Foodstuffs, 53 

Aspirin, 66 

Aston, F. W., 91 

Atomic Weight, 92 

Atomic Structure, 82 

Atoms, 88 

Atwater, W. O., 252 

Australian Ladybird, 194 

Automobile, 30, 36 

Autumn Leaves, 70 


Bacterial Origin of Diseases, 64, 103, 
106, 136, 138 

Bacterium Pneumosintes, 108 

Baille, 115 

Bakelite, 73 

“Bayer 205,” 67 

Bees, 200 

Benedict, F. G., 252, 253 

Benzene, 55, 60 

Berenger, 24 

Beri-Beri, 270, 280 

Black Heart, 244 

Blackleg, 236 


Bonjean, 55 

Botanical Gardens, 162 

Boyle’s Law, 22 

Browning, 62 

Browntail Moth, 194 

Bureau of Entomology, 192, 196 
Burton, W. W., 18 

Butterflies, 200 

By-Product Coke-Ovens, 57 


Caldwell, Otis W., viii, 133 
California White Scale, 194 
Calories, 248, 255, 266 
Carbohydrates, 266 

Carbolic Acid, 58, 73 

Carnegie Institution of Washington, 


253 
Cellulose, 268 
Charles’s Law, 22 
Chemical Elements, 92 
Chemical Warfare, 69 
Chemistry and Economy of Food, 247 
Chemotherapy, 65 
China Medical Board, 158 
China, Medical Schools in, 43 
Chlorine, 91 
Cholera, 64 
Clemenceau, 25 
Coal-Tar, 48, 69 
Coal-Tar Compounds, 70 
Coal-Tar Dye, 51, 52 
Cod-Liver Oil, 280 
Coke Ovens, 56 
Columbia University, 33, 247, 261, 


205 
Conduction, 96 
Congo, 37 
Connecticut Agricultural 
imental Station, 257 
Corn-Borer, 197 


Exper- 


289 


290 


Cotton Boll-Weevil, 195 
Coulter, John M., 167 
Creevy, 27 

Curzon, 24 


Darwin, Charles, 168, 173 
Darwin, Erasmus, 172 

Davis, 250 

Degeneration of Potatoes, 225 
Department of Agriculture, 192 
DeVries, 175 

Diphtheria, 66 

Dirigible Balloons, 4 

Disease Germs, ais 103, 136 
Drake, 14 

Dunlop, 37 


Eddy, Walter H., 258, 265 

Educational Value of Modern Bo- 
tanical Gardens, 162 

Ehrlich, 65, 68 

Ei1jkman, 271, 272, 286 

Electricity, 80, 95 

Electrons, 80 

Electrons and How We Use Them, 78 

Embryology, 170 

Emerson, 181 

Energy, 79 

Energy Values of Food, 252 

Epidemic Influenza, 99 

Epidemics, 151 

Evolution, 167 

Expenditure on Motor Cars, 30 

Experimental Study of Evolution, 
175 

Explosives, 4, 57, 58 


Fats, 259 
Fermentation, 136 
Food, 247 

Food Chemistry, 249 
Food Production, 179 
Food Supply, 261 
Ford, Henry, 26, 36 
Forest, 213, 220 
Formaldehyde, 73 
Fruits, 259, 285 
Funk, Casimir, 273 


Gallieni, 24 
Gas Engine, 24, 41 


INDEX 


Gasolene as a World Power, 12, 17 
Gates, Frederic L., 99 

Giant Potato Plants, 225 

Gipsy Moth, 194 

Gliadin, 257 

Goethe, 172 


Helium, 4, 82, 84 

Hermit Crabs, 205 

History of Evolution, 168, 171 

Honey-Bees, 202, 210 

Hongkong School of Tropical Medi- 
cine, 154 

Hookworms, 67, 159 

Hopkins, 250 

House Fly, 190 

How the Forests Feed the Clouds, 212 

Howard, L. O., 190 

Human Nutrition, 249 

Humidity, 220 

Hydrogen, 87 

Hydrophobia, 145 


Ichneumon, 208 

Ideals of Science, 188 

Immunity from Tuberculosis, 127 

Indigo, 61 

Industrial Revolution, 40 

Influence of Coal-Tar on Civiliza- 
tion, 48 

Influenza, 99 

Tons, 90 

Insect Enemies, 192 

Insect Sociology, 199, 210 

Insects, 190 

International Office of Hygiene, 155 

International Public Health, 150, 
159 

International Sanitary Bureau,. 155 

International Health Board, 159 

Inventions, The Greatest, 28 

Isotopes, 93 


Japanese Beetles, 197 

Jenner, 142 

Johns Hopkins University, 258 
Juvenal, 49 


Kellogg, Vernon, 199 
Kerosene, 18 


INDEX 


Kitchener, Lord, 58 
Koch, Robert, 64, 68, 117, 123 


Lamarck, 173 

Leaf-Roll, 237 

League of Nations, 155 

Legislation Against Thinking, 6 

Leopold of Belgium, 37 

Lettuce, 282 

Lime Juice, 280 

Lipins, 266 

Lister, 145 

Louis Pasteur, and Lengthened Hu- 
man Life, 133 

Luminal, 66 


Macaulay, 28 

Madder, 61 

Maeterlinck, Maurice, 45 

Malarial Fever, 65, 191 

Marco Polo, 13 

McCollum, 250, 276, 279 

Meaning of Evolution, 167 

Meat Consumption, 261 

Meats, 259 

Mendel, G., 250, 269, 275, 279 

Mendel, Lafayette B., 257 

Methanol, 55 

Methylene Blue, 66 

Microbes, War Against, 63 

Mills, John, 78 

Milk, 259, 263, 269, 279, 285 

Mineral Salts, 267 

Modern Potato Problem, 223 

Molecules, 84 

Moore, George T., 162 

Mosaic Disease, 236 

Myrmica, 207 

Naegeli, 123, 124 ; 

National Tuberculosis Association, 
115 

Nitrogen, 82, 84 

Noguchi, 107 

Novocain, 66 

Nucleus of Atoms, 84, 85, 88 

Nutrition Experiments, 262 


Oil, 42 
Orthogenesis, 177 


291 


Osborne, Thomas B., 250, 255 269 
275, 279 

Otto Gas Engine, 20 

Our Daily Bread and Vitamins, 265 

Our Fight Against Insects, 190 

Our Present Knowledge of Tubercu- 
losis, 115 

Oxygen, 92 


Pan American Union, 155 
Parasites, 208, 235 
Pasteur Institute, 154 
Pasteur, Louis, vi, 133 
Pasteurization, 137 

Pear Thrips, 197 
Perfumes, 54, 71 

Perkin, W. H., 50 
Petroleum, 41, 12 
Pfeiffer’s Bacillus, 100 
Picric Acid, 73 

Pine Bark-Beetles, 196 
Phenol, 58, 73 
Phonograph, 73, 75 

Plant Lice, 204, 237 
Potato Crop, 223 

Potato Diseases, 233 
Potato Improvement, 230 
Potato Scab, 235 

Potato Storage, 239 
Potato Varieties, 229 
Potato Wart, 235 

Pott’s Disease, 117 
Precipitation, 221 
Procaine, 66 

Proton, 80, 259, 266, 267 
Public Health, 151 
Pulmonary Tuberculosis, 130 


Rabies, 145 
Radioactive Elements, 86, 95 
Religion, 184, 1838 


Rice, 270 


Rickets, 281 

Road Construction, 39 

Rockefeller Foundation, 158, 150 

Rockefeller Institution for Medical 
Research, 99, 102, 154 

Rosa, 252 

Rostand, Edmond, 46 

Royal Purple, 62 


292 


Rubber, 37 
Rubber Plantations, 38 
Rutherford, 86 


Saccharin, 55 

Salicylic Acid, 55 

Salvarsan, 65 

School of Tropical aS it 154 

Scientific Spirit, 180 

Scurvy, 280 

Sea Anemone, 205 

Seed Inspection, 227 

Seneca Oil, 13 

Shale Oil, 42 

Sherman, Henry C., 247 

Silkworms, 139 

Sleeping Sickness, 67 

Slosson, Edwin E., v, 12, 48 

Smallpox, 142 

Smith, Erwin S., 236 

Smith-Noguchi Medium, 109 

Smith, Theobald, 107 

Social "Wasps, 201 

Soddy, 86, 93 

Sodium, 89 

Soft Drinks, 54 

Spindling Disease, 238 

Spontaneous Generation of Life, 136, 
139 

Spraying, 193 

Standard Oil Company of Indiana, 19 

Steam Engine, I9, 40 

Stephenson, 27 

Stepp, 276 

St. Hilaire, 172 

Sugar, 259 

Symbiosis, 205 

Synthetic Perfumes, 54, 71 


Termites, 203 
Thomson, J. J., 79, 91 
Trinitrotoluene, 57 


INDEX 


Trucks, 41 

Trypanosomes, 67 

Tsetse Fly, 191 

Tubercle Bacilli, 65, 119, 125 
Tuberculin, 123 
Tuberculosis, 64, 115, 117 
Typhoid, 3, 64 


United States Department of Agri- 
culture, 252, 253 

United States Forest Service, 212 

University of Maryland, 223 

Uranium, 85, 93 


Vaccination, 142 

Vanadium, 37 

Vegetables, 259, 285 

Vestiges, 170 

Vincent, George E., 150 

Vinci, Leonardo da, 26 

Vitamins, 229, 250, 258, 259, 265, 
207 270, 283 

Von Behring, 119 

Von Kluck, 24, 58 


Watt, 19 

Wealth, 15 

Wesleyan University, 252 

Williams, Linsly R., 115 

Wilson, 2 

Wind Periodicity and Precipitation, 


214 
Winds, 216 
Wintergreen, 55 
Wheeler, 207 
X-Rays, 95 
Yellow Fever, 3, 191 


Zon, Raphael, 212 
Zoroastrians, 12 





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